1227. Deputy Grace Boland asked the Minister for Education and Youth the number of Teaching Council applications from teachers qualified outside the State over the past three years; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [56209/26]

Under the Teaching Council Acts 2001-2015 the Teaching Council is the body with the statutory authority and responsibility for the regulation of the teaching profession in Ireland including the registration of teachers in the State.

The Teaching Council registers teachers under the Teaching Council Act 2001-2015 and in line with the Teaching Council Registration Regulations, 2025. As set out in the Schedule of the Regulations, the Council registers teachers under five routes of registration: Route 1 - Primary, Route 2 - Post-primary, Route 3 - Further Education, Route 4 - Other and Route 5 - Student Teacher. The qualification requirements for each route are set down in the Schedule of the Regulations.

As a statutory body, the Teaching Council is mandated by law to properly determine and to authenticate the relevant standards and qualifications of all applicants for registration, including those who have qualified outside of Ireland. My department has no role in relation to individual teacher registration.

The qualifications of teachers who qualified outside of the Republic of Ireland (ROI) are assessed to ensure they are of a comparable standard to those achieved by graduates of accredited Initial Teacher Education programmes in ROI. All applications from teachers who qualified outside of ROI are processed in line with EU Directive 2005/36/EU (Mutual Recognition of Professional Qualifications) and are assessed under its general system in the same manner, regardless of whether the applicant qualified within or outside of the EU.

The Teaching Council receives approximately 680 eligible applications annually from teachers who have qualified outside of the ROI, with some 2,000 applications received over the last three years, reflecting a slight upward trend over the period.

In line with EU Directive 2005/36/EC, applicants are advised that the application process may take up to 12 weeks from receipt of all required documentation. The current average processing timeline is 7 weeks for primary applicants and 8 weeks for post-primary applicants. The average processing times for overseas applicants to the register since 2023 are as follows: