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THE DEPARTMENT OF Education and Skills is to examine several cases of retired teachers being rehired by primary schools for more than 50 days despite the Minister for Education calling on schools to prioritise the hiring of unemployed registered teachers.
The minister recently confirmed that 254 retired secondary school teachers and 67 retired primary school teachers have since been rehired by the Department of Education.
Responding to a parliamentary question from Fianna Fáil TD Brendan Smith, Quinn said that the teachers had retired in February and were re-employed on 1 March.
A spokesperson for the Department of Education told TheJournal.ie this evening that of the 67 retirees rehired by primary schools, 32 were employed for less than five days.
“It is likely that those teachers were employed for very short term absences when it was not possible to obtain an unemployed teacher,” they said.
However, seven of the teachers have been employed in excess of 50 days. The Department will examine these cases “to determine if there are particular reasons why they have been employed for such long periods”, the spokesperson said.
Hiring
In his response to Smith, Quinn also said that a circular had been distributed “to ensure, as far as possible, that people appointed to teach are registered teachers with qualifications appropriate to the sector and suitable to the post for which they are employed and that unemployed teachers are offered employment in preference to those who have retired”.
The circular “details a cascade of measures” concerned the recruitment of teachers, Quinn said, and prioritises hiring unemployed registered teachers.
These include a departmental measure allowing for the rehiring of teachers who had been teaching students preparing to take the Leaving and Junior Certs in 2012 immediately prior to their retirement. The minister says that this is intended to reduce the impact of staff changes on the exam students.
According to the Department of Education, returning retirees are paid at the first point of the salary scale and are not paid any qualifications allowances.
Figures obtained by Smith from the Department of Social Protection show that of the 430,000 people on the live register at the end of April, 8,674 said they were last employed in the teaching profession.
This includes people involved in teaching as well as in support roles including special needs assistants, school crossing attendants and cleaners.
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Good
@Shimo F: 100%
@Shimo F: was gonna say same
@Shimo F: Yipee bring on the blackmarket
@Shimo F: no its just a smokescreen to cover up the other debacles in health. Children’s hospital, Limerick Hospital, junior doctors contracts , GP recruitment and retention and Sláinte care strangled at birth I’m looking at you. But sure ban vapes as a fig leaf of achievement.
There once was a minister of health,
With access to oodles of wealth,
But by wasting our money,
With trollies in A and E,
We’re slowly let die by stealth.
@Feargal De Cantuin: I am guessing you think we should not ban them. Should we not maintain our roads because people drink and drive?
@Allo Allo: don’t really see a black market arising for single use vapes when you can get a reusable one for a tenner. Vapes should be for smokers who’ve quit, not an introduction to vaping itself.
@Shimo F: so we all go up the north to buy them then?
@pat kelly: will be banned in the north from April next year
@Shimo F: Agree.
@pat kelly: no we’ll just use the non disposable type ..Doh!
Great idea. Get rid of them.
Waffler Donnelly at it again easy knowing there’s an election on the horizon.
@noel donohue: or he’s simply continuing to do his job as Minister for Health.
@Pat Hazzard: why doesn’t he get the hospital over crowding sorted out first.
@noel donohue: you think he should delay banning vapes, which will takes minutes, until he sorts the health service, which will take decades even if they were serious about sorting it out, which they are clearly not?
@Pat Hazzard: how’s the new hospital goin…finished yet….how bout hospital overcrowding?
Disposable vapes…now that’s the problem!
@damien leen: it is a problem, you think he should just ignore it? How will that speed up the building of the hospital?
@Pat Hazzard: Exactly
@noel donohue: Some problems have easy, cheap solutions that can be done quickly.
Some do not.
any chance of banning obese people from eating in fast food places? or levy an extra tax on them? pose far more of a health risk and burden to the tax payer than a vape.
@Niall English: clearly there better for you than smoking, why not ban smoking? Because when I was a kid it’s not like it was impossible to get a pack of cigs?
@Niall English: The problem aren’t the health risk. It’s the environmental risk. Niall, get a grip and read the article.
@Alex: ehhhh, please read the third paragraph of the article. environmental and public health grounds.
@Niall English: also; Obesity is blamed for approximately 20% more greenhouse gas emissions when compared to people considered to have normal weight. A combination of higher metabolism leading to more carbon dioxide, an additional increase in carbon-dioxide emissions from greater food and drink consumption and the extra output of emissions from fossil fuel-powered transportation, obesity is associated with approximately 20% more greenhouse gas emissions compared to people considered to have a healthier weight.
@Niall English: Yes but the main issue isn’t health, it has always been littering. If they cared about health it would have been banned long ago.
@Niall English: That’s 100% BS.
@Alex: Obesity is directly linked to food habit and 0 exercise. Nothing to do with greenhouse gas, otherwise China would be full of obese along with Ho Chi Minh.
@Niall English: oh that’s nasty. To be on point you’d have said ban fast food but no, launch an attack on people instead, wow.
They want to phase out vapes and keep smokers on the cigarettes because they are losing too much revenue on those who have given up cigarettes thanks to vapes, nothing to do with health or the environment
@Fintan Pox: they are only banning disposable vapes.
@Dermot Blaine: for now
@Fintan Pox: oh my god, “they” are at it again!!! Who exactly are we blaming here? Kids? Sales people? Shops? Manufacturers? Or the smoking lobby!
@Fintan Pox: you do know revenue goes back into the country, not that lost revenue is the issue. It might be hard for you to grasp but politicians are parents too and even if theyre not they are people who act to protect youngsters!
Just put a deposit return scheme on them.
@Dave O Mahony: Read the sixth paragraph.
Never touched one but Ireland is now a complete nanny state cheered on by goons. Meanwhile our wonderful ministers jet around the world first class and on private jets and big cars with drivers preaching to the peasants about environmental impact.
@Aidan Long: 100%, wish they’d stop nannying over us all and worry about important things lime improving healthcare, housing, etc
@Michael Ryan: State should stop providing housing. People should stand on their own two feet and stop letting their nanny sort these things for them.
Why not put forward the same ban on cigarettes?
@Twin Girls: Sneak it in.
Wait a year and then classify them as disposable.
Unintended consequences – a revival of pipe smoking.
The people using them are using our streets and mostly everywhere as a dumping ground for their used vapes.
Why not install cameras and send fines to people who litter? 5000€ fine should help if enforced. You need to touch the wallet to have any consequences with people.
@Alex: it doesn’t work on all other waste, including dog poo. We don’t need more cameras or fines – it’s all there. What’s missing is the enforcement. Anyway people should have enough common sense and responseblity to keep our environment safe and clean. But unfortunately they don’t.
@Alex: so you’re happy for the government to install more monitoring cameras and use facial recognition to identify members of the public going about their business just to catch the few who drop a vape on street seems like a big trade off and very Orwellian to me
@Kay C: If you’re not committing a crime you’ve nothing to worry about.
@Eamon: I like your sarsasm
@Alex: gob$hite
@Eamon: nonsense
Ban them all . No one knows the damage vaping causes. The Health Dept. We’re asleep when vapes came on the market
@Fran Carroll: they been around for around 20 years already. I’m sure we have a good understanding at this stage.
Country is awash with cocaine, but let’s focus on banning at bit of nicotine, you couldn’t make it up
@Fintan Pox: I’m sure that if there was a law that could be passed to sort that out it would have been.
Well any law other than the only kind that might work that is. Nobody has the nerve for that.
Oh and what’s being banned is not nicotine but packaging aimed at children.
@Fintan Pox: it’s not really cocaine
Ban the spice vapes, artificial thc causing paranoia, available for 5oeuro for 1mg or 75euro for 2mg.
Freely available at our local vape shop.
Crazy.
@jason dawson:
Where is this vape shop?
Asking for a friend.
@jason dawson: Spice or HHC ? They’re not even close to the same thing. HHC might be fairly safe, Spice certainly is not.
Great idea. Wasted batteries, electric components and not to mention what the hell is in those devices. All of which is either dumped in ditches or in landfill. That they are even allowed in the first place is surprising.
@Roman Walczak Sadlowski: sounds like a car.
What took him so long?
Good.
Difficult to recycle???? I’ve just seen an entire Reddit thread of someone turning a handful of used ones into a fully functional power bank.
Vapes should have been made available on prescription only from the start.
@Richard Barrett:
Yeah, because waiting days for a doctors appointment and then paying €60 to talk to the doctor and another €20 to write the prescription will really encourage people to quit smoking.
(rolls eyes)
Good move. Bloody things are thrown on the ground on paths, green areas, etc. So much for the young people (who these vapes are aimed at) and their concern for the environment
@Shelley Keary: they are concerned but only during school hours when there is a march on
I dont have any time for the health minister whose record to be honest is very poor but to be fair I think this is really good work. I see a lot of young people who probably wouldn’t ever smoke but are very happy to vape. My own opinion (based on nothing other than 50 years of common sense) is that inhaling anything like that cannot be good for your lungs long term. The addition of flavoured tapes I though also was very dangerous to make them appeal to younger persons.
@Toca Stories: have u thought how is this to be enforced. Don’t say the garda. Law with no Teeth. Joke if it can’t be acted upon. As as under age drinking. No enforcement either.
@John Flanagan: it will take the vast majority of them off the market. Nothing can be 100% enforced but it’s better than nothing.and will make a big difference.
@Toca Stories: it will create a lucrative black market, prohibition never worked anywhere, ever
@Fintan Pox: so what’s your solution then?
@Fintan Pox: That black market will have to compete with reusable vapes – either cartridge or tank based – which will be in the shops pushed as hard as the tobacco companies can get away with.
The only value in disposable vapes is to the sellers as they are an easy impulse buy.
And I’m sure will be enforced thourghly by our ever vigilant garda. Who have nothing else to do only watch people buying vapes. My god what a country. Parts of country Lawless and garda struggling to do there job due to lack of numbers. And now must enforce this rubbish. Bring in laws that can’t be enforced. Good plan that.
Definitely a good thing, I smoked refillable Vapes to get off tobacco and have gotten off vapes altogether for the most part but disposable vapes are definitely a constant temptation I find as they are cheap and easy, I will be happy to see them gone, not to mention the environmental cost that comes with them
@John O’Donnell: you must go thru hell walking thru a cake shop ;) ban cakes!
I agree with banning disposables but they shouldn’t ban flavours. Over 80% of adult vapers use none tobacco flavours. How about enforcing the law instead of just banning everything??. It’s almost like they want vapers to go back to smoking!!!
@John Smith: might be safer going back to smoking. We don’t know long term consequences of vape flavourings yet. Definitely need to ban flavorings – strawberry vape? Every ten year olds favourite…..
@Lorry R: a hell of a lot safer than smoking. Turning 60 shortly and mine’s watermelon. Adults enjoy sweet flavour too, but you know that right? If a ten year old is vaping, somebody’s breaking the law supplying. That’s where enforcement comes in. You don’t ban something designed for adults as a result.
” One and a half GP s ” , ??. “Good morning , which half of your doctor would you like to see today ?”
What about banning all the child rapest they are importing into Ireland
@Sean O: yeah we’ve already loads of our own
The vape manufacturers are already prepared and are selling reusable as something new.
I’m now going to be careful not to advertise – sorry about the convoluted phrasing.
One popular manufacturer has added display advertising about a reusable variant on their disposable brand (retaining the brand that originally meant disposable and adding a word meaning reusable) boasting that users can keep their device and change their flavour.
Isn’t advertising wonderful?
Such an amazing government:(
From the celtic tiger to the celtic taliban in a few short years
Anyone sucking a piece of plastic is never a good look
@ahhhhh Ted…… Tubridys going into comedy: it’s a better look than inhaling cancerous tobacco.
Vaping is the single most effective way to quit smoking tobacco. Flavours are critical to its success. Nicotine is not a carcinogen. Further taxing of harm reductive vaping and placing an excise duty on it discourages smokers from switching and quitting tobacco. The tobacco industry has a minority interest in the vaping industry. Sweden is about to become the first smoke-free country in Europe by embracing harm reduction while Ireland’s smoking rates remain stubbornly high and will continue so under this government’s misguided policy. https://smokefreesweden.org/
another item added to the black economy…
I’m 51 and enjoy fruit flavoured vapes. Thanks for controlling my life choices
What’s the opposition view on this bill? Normally they chime in on everything .
What’s the one flavour going to be?
@Stevie Doran: probably a flavour like tobacco so people will keep smoking? Who knows. There’s no logic to Harris’s hate of harm reduction and vaping. Very very odd.
Way too late. They should’ve been stopped as soon as they began sale.
@SaraB: thank God they weren’t. Got me off a 35 year heavy tobacco addiction. Wish vaping was around when I was a teen and started smoking. Would have saved me years of misery and expense.
Excellent now ban vape flavours bar the tobacco flavour
@Paul A Kane: Butyl mercaptan flavour should be the standard.
@Paul A Kane: the vast majority of people who quit smoking by switching to vaping use non tobacco flavours. It’s the last taste they want after quitting. Why would you want a tobacco flavour? Curious.
Only allow the sale of vapes to those who have a prescription from their GP that they are trying to give up the smokes
@Means Of Escape: why?
@Means Of Escape: why?
have your say