Education is the great liberator, but that is if you can get an education. In Ireland in 2024, as we have learned today, 44 pupils across the country are being taught at home because there is no school place available for them. A further 150 young people are receiving home tuition because of anxiety or mental health issues but also in many cases because there are just not enough staff in their school to look after them during the day. Those figures, awful though they are, only scratch the surface and do not take account of the immense disruption caused to children with additional needs who have no clear routine because they are forced to travel to get an education. The figures do not take account of the immense stress and financial cost to the parents of those children and their families. One parent in my own community wrote to me about the situation facing his son. He is one of the many thousands of children who are being taken out of their home area in buses and taxis every day, bussed out just to go to school. On the lack of resources for children with additional needs, the parent said this has transformed some special schools into nothing more than containment facilities to try to manage behaviours of children, not educational spaces. There just are not enough staff in schools and that is failing our children.

It is not just those children who are without a special school place or without SNA support in the classroom who are at risk. Our schooling system is facing a crisis of teacher supply more generally. I hear this from teachers, principals and parents in Dublin, Meath, Kildare, Louth, Galway, Cork and other places too. We are all hearing it. The Taoiseach insists that all children who need a school place will get one but I cannot see how he can guarantee that. The facts speak for themselves. Already I am dealing with parents on the housing list who are terrified they will be unable to take up an offer of a home in a particular area because it will mean their child cannot find a school. We all know of teaching staff who cannot find accommodation near their schools due to the housing crisis. The INTO tells us that nearly 1,000 posts are vacant in our primary schools. The Department of Education reports that nearly half of all secondary schools across the commuter belt will be oversubscribed in the coming school year. Demographic changes signal an enormous crisis in secondary education coming down the tracks. Our schools are already understaffed, principals are telling us they are struggling to recruit qualified teachers and new graduates cannot afford to live where we need them to live. Special education teachers are being forced to plug personnel gaps. Shockingly, unqualified teaching staff are being recruited to keep classrooms open while many subjects are being taken off the curriculum in individual second level schools due to lack of teachers. The effect is that our children's education is being undermined. Teachers' unions and parents have highlighted the problems schools are facing, including a shortage of teachers, the working conditions for new and junior teachers and the double whammy of the cost-of-living and housing crises.

We need a commitment to address these issues. We in the Labour Party are calling for a task force to address this crisis. What is the Government putting in place now to stem the exodus of teachers from our schools?

She is not looking for a second bike shed any more.

Oh shut up.

She gave up on the second bike shed.

She is not very good at building anything.

We have had enough of the Waldorf and Statler, please.

Apologies, a Cheann Comhairle, but I have really had enough of that.

We will tell you the truth oftentimes.

Deputies, please. I call the Taoiseach.

Thank you, a Cheann Comhairle. I thank Deputy Bacik who is clearly raising an important issue here----

A serious issue.

---- which deserves to be treated with the seriousness with which the question is asked. Of course education is a vitally important issue. The Deputy is right to highlight that there are some challenges and pinch points in respect of recruitment that I want to deal with directly. We need to remind ourselves again that the vast majority of allocated teaching posts are of course filled. There are more teachers than ever before working in the Irish education system. In March of this year, there were 78,646 teachers employed. We see on average in teaching less than 1% resignations and less than 2% of retirements annually. The teacher allocation ratio in primary schools, which I know we all view as really important, is now at the lowest it has ever been. That certainly makes a difference for our youngest kids as they start their formal education journey. There was an increase of 30.3% in the number of teaching posts allocated to primary schools between the 2017-18 and 2023-24 school years. Enrolments at primary level are projected to decline until 2036. That is the way the demographic bubble is moving in Ireland. A teacher projections report is due to be published quite shortly.

The Deputy is right, though, and we cannot wish away some of the challenges that exist here. There are areas of high demand. Indeed, I live in an area where there has been significant growth in population. As a result, we have been working really hard to try to expand school capacity. Since this Government came into office in 2020, we have invested about €4.5 billion in schools throughout the country and have seen around 800 school building projects completed and 300 other projects under construction. When it comes to special educational needs, it is not just a question of resources. I can stand here and tell the Deputy quite honestly that it is the largest special needs education budget ever. That is true. The Minister of State, Deputy Naughton, is working really hard on this. As she knows and as I agree, it also requires reform. It requires much better and more advanced planning, particularly when it comes to second level education for children with special educational needs. Only in the last week or so, the Minister has sanctioned five additional special schools for next year, one in Cork, I think, two in Dublin, one in Monaghan and one in Tipperary. We have given funding for 120 additional special educational needs organisers, SENOs, to have them on the ground. These are the eyes and ears who can often feed back and bring people together. They should also be the contact point for the parent, instead of a parent having to go around lots of different schools to try to find a place. There is now a forward planning structure in place in the Department of Education. There could well be merit in the Deputy's suggestion of a task force. The Minister of State, Deputy Naughton, has just established a task force for special educational needs in Dublin 15. I think it has its first meeting today. Perhaps that could be a model we could build on in terms of the rest of the country. I am happy to work constructively with the Deputy on this. I am conscious of the anxiety it causes. We generally get to a place where a place is found for every child but that is not to take away from the stress and strain of a child not knowing which school they are going to, or if their friends are going somewhere else. We need to do better on the forward planning piece and the task force idea could be a constructive suggestion in relation to that.

I thank the Taoiseach for his constructive response. A Cheann Comhairle, I apologise for my language earlier but I am sick of taking insults and abuse on cycling from Deputies who believe that God above is in charge of the weather and who have no record of taking the climate crisis seriously. I have no time for that nonsense.

You would want to be sure you are not going to the pumps for diesel. You will not build a million houses either. We have enough of that now.

I have no time for that nonsense when we are----

Please, can we stop bickering?

She referred to me.

Stop bickering, please.

A Cheann Comhairle, I want to address the Taoiseach's response to me. Government policy is taking teachers for granted, notwithstanding his response. We still have some of the highest pupil-teacher ratios in Europe. The Government promised a citizens' assembly on the future of education which seems to have been quietly dropped. We want to know when the Taoiseach will address the teacher shortage crisis that is causing such seriously negative knock-on impacts for children's education across the country. As we reach the last few weeks of this Government, what is the plan for the citizens' assembly on education and for that broader vision on the future of our education system that was promised in the programme for Government?

Very shortly we are probably going to ask the people of Ireland to elect a citizens' assembly called the Dáil. I do not want to mislead the Deputy or the House on that. It is unlikely that there will be any further citizens' assemblies proposed by this Government. I would like to say on the record of the House that I do see merit in a citizens' assembly on education. We have had quite a lot of them and my truthful view is that I am not a big fan of having many more. There are many complexities and important issues in education and it would be good to bring people together to tease through those issues.

I am sure we will all have a chance to outline our respective positions on that in the time ahead.

We are certainly not taking teachers for granted. I understand that teachers are not immune to the challenges that are faced by many young people in our country in respect of housing, and housing supply is an important part of improving teacher recruitment. I know that, in my constituency and around the country. We have a new pay deal, though, for teachers and it will mean a teacher's starting salary will now increase to €46,000, rising to a maximum of €85,000. This does compare well internationally, but I know the cost-of-living pressures in Ireland are real too. We have seen over 3,700 newly qualified teachers registered with the Teaching Council in 2024 and we now have over 123,000 on the register. I think that when it comes to enrolments and admissions, better planning with centralised planning processes and forward planning on special educational needs is the way to go. I also think that the D15 task force, as established by the Minister of State, Deputy Naughton, has an important role to play.