Carysfort teacher-training intake
Higgins asks about Carysfort’s trainee intake and seeks assurances on future training and staff redeployment. O’Rourke says no trainees were admitted because the previous Government stopped intake in 1986, and defends that decision.
asked the Minister for Education, the number of first year trainee teachers admitted to Carysfort training college, County Dublin, this year.
Comment on this
I have just one supplementary. In view of the remarkable U-turn or S-bend by the Minister in relation to her commitments when in Opposition to the retention of Carysfort as a training college, is she prepared to guarantee that whatever rearrangement emerges there will be a high element of teacher training and that the existing staff will not be made redundant but will be redeployed within the existing structure?
Comment on this
To answer the question which Deputy Higgins posed earlier and now again, the intake of primary school teacher trainees into Carysfort was stopped by a Minister in the Deputy's Government following a decision of February 1986. There was no intake following that last year or this year. Perhaps Deputy Higgins wants to escape from that now and then but it is a fact.
Comment on this
The Deputy asked why there was no intake. The question was to ask the Minister for Education the number of first year trainee teachers admitted to Carysfort training college, County Dublin, this year. I have pointed out that the previous Government in the previous year made a decision and they carried it through in their Estimate of that year and again in January of this year.
