I also extend good wishes to the Ceann Comhairle.

Like many in this House, I have had countless emails and calls from school principals, parents, students and teachers, all of whom are extremely concerned about the issue of substitution for teachers who are sick or self-isolating due to Covid.

It is important to say this is not a new or unexpected problem. Covid has exacerbated it, but it is still an issue. I raised this several times with the Minister for Education last year and she kept telling me about the supply panels. I will come back to that in a moment. The Irish National Teachers Organisation, INTO, did a survey in November which showed the extent of this problem. In many ways, we were ahead of it in Sligo because a number of surveys were done in September and October in 32 schools, where there were 473 absences that required substitution. Some 22 schools, or 69%, had access to supply panels. The panel for those 22 schools supplied 15% of the substitutes. Some 27% of cases were covered either by special education teachers or principals, or were simply not covered. Of the remaining ten schools that did not have access to supply panels, there was no substitute available 34% of the time. That is one in every three days. They were mainly the smaller schools that do not have flexibility within them to juggle teachers. Many comments were made by teachers and principals about this, but I do not have time to read them. Basically, they are saying that they make between 15 and 25 calls and they cannot get substitutes. This is a crisis. It is worse now than it was before.

Today, we hear the Minister is meeting representatives from the teacher education colleges, but this should have happened this time last year. This is bad management. I hate to say that, but it needs to be called out for what it is. When we are in a crisis we must take unprecedented actions. The Taoiseach has done this in other areas, so I do not know why it has not been done in education. Many fourth year students in teacher training colleges are already substituting, so one could ask where we look. Do we look to retired teachers, teachers on secondment or those in the inspectorate for a short period to get us over this hump? It is not ideal. Nothing is ideal in a pandemic and anybody who says it is, is not reasonable, but we expect proper planning to deal with this ongoing and escalating problem. I ask the Taoiseach what we are going to do.

I agree with Deputy Harkin that given the once-in-a-century nature of the global pandemic we need to take measures now in respect of teacher substitution which we would not take in ordinary "peace" time. I will put it that way to the Deputy. That does mean that all stakeholders, be they regulatory or unions, must show some degree of flexibility as well. Today's meeting with the higher education institutions is not the first engagement between the Minister and the institutions. There have been challenges in terms of attendance for the theory side and so on. In my view, flexibility must be shown in regard to student teachers, as they could go a long way towards helping.

In addition, we must look at other areas. Retirement has been considered and good, constructive flexibility has been shown by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform in terms of facilitating additionality in that regard. The Minister is exploring other areas with the education partners. Flexibility should be shown on all sides to get us through this period in respect of substitute teachers. The Minister has already provided significant additional resources in terms of the further 100 teachers who were allocated to supply panels where the Department had identified areas of greatest need. The supply panels now employ 480 teachers. They provide substitute cover to almost 2,600 primary schools across the country. They work alongside the more traditional existing methods of sourcing substitute teachers such as the national substitution portal service, subseeker.ie, operated by the Irish Primary Principals Network and developed under the Department's teacher supply action plan. In any one month or year, there can be a whole variety of reasons substitute teaching is required to replace existing teachers.

Notwithstanding that, given the fact we are in the middle of a pandemic, we have to show, and all the stakeholders involved, in my view, will have to show, flexibility in respect of the utilisation of student teachers and, indeed, other alternative methods of providing teachers. We have many qualified people who may not necessarily, for example, have the teaching qualifications per se but who would have degrees and so on. These are issues we need to look at. Given the circumstances and given the fact the vaccination campaign has been very strong and the booster is rolling out, if everybody put their heads together, we could get a resolution to this or certainly alleviate the situation.

As the Taoiseach said, it is a once-in-a-century happening. He said that all stakeholders have to show flexibility. Has there been inflexibility and, if so, how does he believe we can get over this issue? I agree the Minister has given resources but the truth is they are not enough because it is a once-in-a-century happening - the Taoiseach said it himself. Therefore, in a situation like this, we have to make sure the resources we put in place will support the systems, like education, which the Taoiseach and all his colleagues believe is one of the most important systems to support. The Taoiseach spoke of supply panels. All I can tell him is that one third of schools in Sligo do not even have access to supply panels, never mind being able to get teachers from them. This is a once-in-a-century emergency situation and I believe that insufficient planning has gone into dealing with it.

First, in wrapping up, I want to send our best wishes to the Ceann Comhairle and to wish him the very best in his recovery from Covid-19.

I believe in flexibility at moments like this. This is not related but I will make the point. I remember many years ago, when I was the Minister for Education, the idea of introducing a qualified Montessori teacher to primary schools was something that was anathema to all and sundry who are in primary education. There can sometimes be too rigid and bureaucratic an approach to what we should do in the middle of a pandemic like this. That is my point. I am sure the stakeholders will work with the Minister to resolve this. The Minister has gone a long way in terms of providing the resources and it is not a funding resource issue. I think the student teachers offer an opportunity, as Deputies articulated last week, in particular Deputy Cathal Crowe, and there are other issues around the 22 hours, for example, and the mechanisms there. All of that needs working through with the Teaching Council and the unions, and there are all the different permutations to this.