A FORMER minister for education has condemned as “facetious”, “insulting” and a “serious mistake” a provision in education legislation to allow for the employment of unregistered teachers.

Fianna Fáil TD Mary O’Rourke said that particularly at a time when so many qualified and experienced teachers were unemployed she was “appalled that any Government Minister or department would seek to enshrine this provision in legislation”.

Ms O’Rourke dismissed assurances by Tánaiste and Minister for Education Mary Coughlan that such appointments would only be in exceptional cases. She said “exceptions become the norm”.

She was speaking during the Dáil debate on the Education (Amendment) Bill, which provides for direct State involvement in setting up primary schools. The Bill also establishes the framework through which Vocational Education Committees become patrons of primary schools for the first time.

It also provides for the employment of unregistered teachers under specific conditions.

Insisting there were no circumstances in which an unregistered teacher should be employed Ms O’Rourke said it would be easy to establish a database “of available teachers for specific hours”.

Ms Coughlan said “the reality facing schools is that it is not always possible to engage a registered teacher, particularly at short notice . . . It is important that provision be made for the exceptional and limited circumstances where the use of unregistered teachers may be necessary.”

The Tánaiste highlighted the involvement of VECs in the provision of primary education. It was among a “number of measures” including “new arrangements for the recognition of primary schools and assisting the Catholic Church in its deliberations on the possible divesting of patronage of some of its schools”.

Ms Coughlan said “the Government agreed that the new model of primary school patronage would be a new State model of community national schools under the patronage of Vocational Education Committees”. It would cater for parents’ wishes for “denominational, multi-denominational and non-denominational education”.

Fine Gael education spokesman Fergus O’Dowd opposed some provisions “because they are discriminatory, particularly against teachers who are fully qualified and registered”.

He believed there was “inadequate preparation in the Bill for the fact that tens of thousands of qualified graduates who are registered with the Teaching Council cannot obtain positions at present”, when people “with no qualifications at all can pick up work in schools”.

Labour education spokesman Ruairí Quinn said the Minister proposed that the “VEC is the rightful custodian of community interests as it is accountable democratically to the community”. But that accountability “will not extend to the new VEC boards of management in the new primary schools”. He said “the State is prohibited from endowing any religion in accordance with the republican principals of the Constitution. The VECs, as organs of the State, are prohibited from endowing religion.”

He also asked “what section of the Bill specifically facilitates or assists the Catholic Church in its deliberations on the possibility of divesting of patronage in some of its schools?” He said that “Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, the largest patron in terms of numbers of schools in the country, has expressed an opinion that he would be much happier with 50 per cent of the schools for Catholic education rather than the 92 per cent he currently possesses”.