asked the Minister for Education the number of newly-qualified teachers who will be available to take up teaching posts in national schools for the first time this summer; and the date or dates on which they entered training.

The number of newly-qualified teachers who are due to graduate from the Colleges of Education and to be available to take up teaching posts in national schools for the first time this summer is 935. Of this number, 746 will have completed a three-year course and 189 are graduates who have completed a one-year course.

Would the Minister accept that the huge majority of those teachers who will be going into these schools this year for the first time went into training under the previous administration?

If one accepts that it takes three years to train them and if one goes back three years in time, it is not possible to deny the validity of the point being made.

Would the Minister indicate whether the teachers concerned in these figures he has given, described variously by the Minister for Education after the budget as numbering 500 or 300, are part of this intake or whether they are growing on trees somewhere?

That was not the question put by the Deputy. His question has been answered fully but his supplementary deals with a matter which could not be taken normally as deriving from the original question.

I am simply asking whether the figure of 935 includes the extra teachers promised by the Minister for Education after the budget.

The Minister has answered the question.

He does not wish to answer it.

He has pointed out rightly that it is a separate question.

If there are extra teachers, either they have or have not been provided by the Minister for Education. The basic question is whether these are teachers who were put into training three years ago. The answer affects the whole publicity machinery of the Department.

The Deputy will appreciate that there is no reference whatever in his original question to the matter he is purporting to inject into it.