Senator Pearse Doherty has called on Minister for Education Mary Hanafin to put in place a mechanism to ensure that no registered sex offenders can be used as substitute teachers.
Senator Doherty, the Sinn Féin Education spokesperson, was speaking after receiving a response to a Parliamentary Question from the Minister in which she states that responsibility for ensuring the suitability of individuals for substitute teaching l
ies with the boards of management of schools.
The Donegal Senator said, “In response to a Parliamentary Question the Minister for Education Mary Hanafin has told me that when it comes to substitute teachers ‘appointing staff is the responsibility of the board of management and it is for the Board to satisfy itself that a particular individual is considered suitable for appointment’.
“This is completely unacceptable. I had asked the Minister what practice has been put in place to ensure that registered sex offenders are not used as substitute teachers in schools and she has basically attempted to move the responsibility from the State to the predominantly voluntary school boards.
“There are currently 974 unqualified substitute teachers teaching in our schools. The Minister for Education does not know if any of these are on the sex offenders list. The fact that a registered sex offender could be teaching children is of grave concern,” he said.
The full article contains 232 words and appears in Journal Friday newspaper.
