Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Sinead, I am happy to hand over to you for an initial presentation, and we will then move to questions and answers.

Ms Sinead McMurray (Research and Information Service): I am a research officer in the Northern Ireland Assembly Research and Information Service (RaISe), and the purpose of my evidence session today is to present the RaISe paper on the Irish-medium Education (Workforce Plan) Bill. In the short time that I have, I will attempt to cover how the Bill interacts with existing and forthcoming legislation and departmental commitments and how other jurisdictions have approached workforce planning in minority language education. The paper also considers the financial implications of the Bill and certain aspects of the drafting of the Bill.

As a quick overview: the Bill is short, consisting of two clauses. Clause 1 places a statutory duty on the Department of Education to prepare, publish and lay before the Assembly a strategic workforce plan for the Irish-medium education (IME) sector. The Bill requires the first plan to be produced within 12 months of Royal Assent and subsequent plans at intervals of no more than five years thereafter. Within 18 months of laying a plan before the Assembly, the Minister of Education will be required to report on its implementation. The Bill also requires the Department to consult with a range of bodies in preparing the plan, and the plan should include targets against which any actions can be measured. The Bill sets out five specific areas that the workforce plan should address. Those include current and future demands on the workforce; sufficiency of the workforce to meet those demands; and recruitment, retention and development of the workforce.

The Bill responds to documented workforce shortages in the Irish-medium education sector. The sector has grown from just over 1,600 pupils in 2002 to almost 8,000 pupils across 90 settings in 2026. Research has identified a number of challenges with recruitment in the IME sector, including a shortage of fluent Irish-speaking teachers and classroom assistants; increased workload pressures on existing staff, in particular around developing Irish-medium resources; limited availability of Irish-speaking subject specialists at post-primary level; gaps in special educational needs provision in areas such as assessment and the delivery of specialist support; and insufficient training places to meet projected demand.

One of the considerations that has arisen in the course of the Bill's progress is that the Department of Education already has a statutory duty under article 89 of the Education Order to promote and facilitate Irish-medium education. A key consideration thus far has been about what additional value the Bill brings, given that the duty to promote and facilitate Irish-medium education already exists. In that context, it is relevant to look back at the Department's 2008 review of Irish-medium education. That made a number of recommendations on workforce and on areas such as special educational needs provision in the Irish-medium education sector. No formal audit of the progress of those 2008 recommendations has been published, but research in 2022 by Comhairle na Gaelscolaíochta (CnaG) and the Committee on the Administration of Justice suggests that most of the recommendations remain wholly or partially outstanding. I suppose that that is despite significant growth in the sector since then.

It is also worth noting that in the intervening period — in 2011 — the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal recorded that article 89 carries statutory weight and that, in the words of the court, the target is not "merely aspirational". A general statutory duty in the Bill, without specific targets, timelines or reporting requirements, would not be sufficient to drive delivery in practice. A statutory workforce plan with measured objectives and Assembly-level scrutiny, rather than the existing duty alone, would provide a more structured and accountable mechanism for implementation.

A related question is whether placing workforce planning on a statutory footing would materially change outcomes in the size of the Irish-medium education workforce. The paper looks at that question through exploring comparator jurisdictions and how they facilitate minority language-medium education. Scotland, Wales and the Republic of Ireland have statutory duties to promote and facilitate language-medium education. Until recently, none had extended those duties specifically to workforce planning for their language workforce. Each has introduced a range of initiatives, primarily through bursaries and the expansion of teacher training places.

Generally, bursary schemes offer full fee coverage and maintenance support and have been used to incentivise recruitment into language-medium teacher training. In 2025, the Department of Education in Northern Ireland introduced a similar targeted bursary scheme for hard-to-fill teaching areas, including Irish-medium education. Under that bursary, postgraduate candidates in Irish-medium education receive full tuition coverage of around £5,000, along with a living-cost stipend of £1,000 a month, and students entering the Bachelor of Education course receive full fee coverage for the four years. That comes to roughly £20,000.

Those types of initiatives have been in place for a sustained period in the three comparator jurisdictions without resolving the persistent shortages of suitably qualified teachers. All three report sustained long-term vacancies in their language-medium education workforce.

In Wales, in response to those continued workforce shortages and alongside a range of other Welsh language commitments that the Welsh Government have made, the Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Act 2025 was introduced. There is a range of commitments within that around Welsh-medium education, but part of it is that a statutory framework for Welsh-medium workforce planning was introduced. Under the existing system in Wales, local authorities, which are responsible for education provision in their areas, set their own plans and targets for developing Welsh-medium education. Those plans are the Welsh education strategic plans (WESPs). In 2015 and 2017, the Welsh Government undertook a review of those WESPs and found significant variations in Welsh-medium education outcomes and how it was expanding in the local areas. Two specific issues were highlighted in the review, first of which was the ongoing difficulty in recruiting Welsh-medium teachers. The local authorities identified that the most significant difficulty that they faced in expanding Welsh-medium education was the lack of availability of teachers. The other issue highlighted was a lack of central accountability. Targets were determined locally by the local authorities and were not subject to any external scrutiny.

Under the new framework, which will be statutory in nature, national-level targets will be set, and each of the local authorities will have to meet those national-level targets. Within the statutory framework, the Welsh Government will be required to set out how they will secure the sufficient supply of Welsh-medium education teachers. It does not set specific staffing numbers or guarantee funding, but it makes workforce planning a mandatory ongoing element of statutory planning for Welsh-language education. The Act does not take effect until 2028, and the consultation is due to be carried out at some point this year. It is too early to assess the impact of whether having workforce planning on a statutory footing will make a material difference to the size of the workforce available, but there is evidence to suggest that the existing initiatives, such as bursaries or an increase in the number of teacher training places, do not necessarily result in a larger workforce.

A further consideration is how the Bill would interact with existing and forthcoming departmental commitments. TransformED, which is the Department's system-wide education reform programme, commits to introducing a teacher supply monitoring framework by 2026-27. The specifics of the framework are not yet publicly available, and it is not clear whether it will include specific measures around the Irish-medium education workforce or provide data at the level required to support workforce planning in the IME sector. TransformED identifies recruitment gaps in subjects such as physics, technology and design, and maths, but Irish-medium education is not listed as a subject. Therefore, it may be worth asking the Department what data was used to identify the specific subjects that are highlighted as needing support, whether any similar data is available on the Irish-medium education sector, and whether that data could be shared.

The second departmental commitment that is worth noting is the forthcoming Irish-medium education strategy, which is expected in mid-2027. From a timing perspective, if the Bill were enacted before the strategy is published, the Department would be required to develop a statutory plan alongside preparing the wider strategy, so it may be worth clarifying with the Department how those two documents would relate to each other in practice. It is worth noting that the Bill sponsor sought clarity from the Department on the likely content of any strategy with regard to workforce planning, but that information has not been made available as of yet.

On the financial implications, the Department provided the Research and Information Service with initial cost estimates for fulfilling the planning duty. They range from £131,000 to £218,000 per five-year cycle, averaging about £26,000 to £43,000 per year. The difference between the lower and higher figures reflects a scenario in which it had to go externally to get data and have research undertaken to support the development of the plan. The costs would include staff time, consultation, research or data commissioning, and ongoing monitoring. The Department has described those costs as high level and non-definitive and has stated that funding will not be guaranteed. It has also indicated that the existing Irish-medium team in the Department of Education is small and that the work would be unlikely to be able to be absorbed by the existing Irish-medium team without reprioritisation or additional resources. The Bill sponsor has characterised the costs as modest and proportionate preventative investment when set against the costs of not acting on the Irish-medium education workforce.

It is worth noting that the Department's estimates relate only to the planning obligations, so any workforce plan would likely produce downstream policy and funding requirements. Those would not arise directly from the Bill, but they are intended policy consequences, so it may be worth asking the Department what those wider costs might be. As Karen noted with the holiday hunger Bill, all this is taking place in the context of significant and ongoing budgetary pressures facing the Department of Education, which may limit the capacity to absorb new statutory duties without additional funding.

On the specific provisions of the Bill, clause 1 requires any workforce plan to set out measurable targets against which its effectiveness can be assessed. In practice, meaningful targets depend on having a comprehensive baseline data infrastructure. Without that data infrastructure, targets cannot be set on a sound evidential basis, and any progress may be difficult to measure or report on accurately. The Welsh experience provides some relevant context. The Welsh Government have developed a dedicated dataset that tracks Welsh-medium teacher supply, which draws on a range of recruitment and workforce indicators. That data enabled Wales to identify recruitment pressures and to report on trends, and it supported the decision to introduce statutory workforce planning measures. In that context, it may be worth considering whether the need for sector-specific workforce data should be addressed explicitly in the Bill, noting that, if you set up a data infrastructure, it may incur additional costs.

Finally, the Bill requires the workforce plan to be published within 12 months of Royal Assent. The Department said that it is unlikely to be able to absorb the work within existing capacity and that new funding cannot be guaranteed, so it may be worth asking the Department whether the timeline is realistic and what timeline it would consider to be achievable.

I realise that I flew through that, so, if anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Thank you, Sinead. I was going to ask some questions about the frameworks in other jurisdictions, but you covered those in a fair bit of detail. I was interested in any data emerging from that, but, obviously, we are in the very early stages in the Welsh system.

The only thing that I want to flag at this stage is around whether you considered any need for anything a bit more specific in the SEN workforce. One of the key challenges that has been set out in Irish-medium education is the lack of availability of a workforce: I am thinking there of speech and language therapists who can support children in Irish-medium settings. Is there scope to have something a bit more specific on the kinds of things that need to be included in the plan and the workforce that needs to be recruited?

Ms McMurray: Yes. Sorry, I did draw attention to that in the paper. In clause — I will get my paper out now. I need to check the phrase, but there is mention of the "differing functions" of the workforce. I suppose that there are two sides to it. One is that leaving it flexible allows for flexibility in developing who should be included in that. However, because SEN has been flagged as a specific issue in the Irish-medium setting, particularly around resources and having educational psychologists who can carry out assessments in the medium of Irish, it may be worth being more explicit in the Bill about the specific areas of the workforce that need to be addressed. Furthermore, the Bill sets out a range of persons who need to be consulted, as well as the body Comhairle na Gaelscolaíochta. It might be worth being specific about having somebody from the educational psychology workforce as a person to be consulted; being a bit more specific on the labels.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Possibly a health representative as well, if we are looking at allied health professionals.

Ms McMurray: Yes, it is worth considering that for things such as occupational therapy and speech and language therapy. That would also link into the special educational needs teams that are being set up. It could link into that a little bit.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): That is really helpful. It might be something that the Deputy Chair, as the Bill sponsor, wants to speak to. We can certainly put any of that in writing as well.

Are there any other questions at this stage? Does anyone else want to contribute? Deputy Chair, do you want to come in at all?

Mr Sheehan: Seeing as it is Peter's last meeting, I will let him go first.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): There you go, Peter.

Mr Martin: Thank you very much, Deputy Chair. Thank you very much, Chair, and thank you very much, Sinead, for coming along and talking to the Bill. It was very helpful.

Your paper talks about what —

Ms McMurray: Comhairle na Gaelscolaíochta.

Mr Martin: — yes — noted about the supply of primary teachers. I will read it out because people who are listening will not have the paper. The paper states that it noted that:

It goes on:

I read through the whole thing, and that was probably the most striking figure; the one that jumped out at me. My first question is this: why? Do you have any idea about why the majority of IME graduates do not go on to teach in our sector?

Ms McMurray: That is interesting. That was contained in the workforce plan by Comhairle na Gaelscolaíochta. The issues that it has raised are the ones that I have put in the paper: graduates go to the Republic of Ireland, some go abroad and some end up taking up posts in English-medium schools. I do not know why or what the difference is between taking up a post in an Irish-medium or English-medium school. There could be a number of reasons for that. Those are the main reasons listed by Comhairle na Gaelscolaíochta.

Mr Martin: I will shorten its title to CnaG. The evidence suggests that 40% of graduates are staying in the IME sector. Were you to flip that figure and say that 80% — the majority of graduates — were staying in the IME sector, would that solve CnaG's issue around getting enough bodies into teaching in the IME sector? What I am driving at is this: is it the case that teachers who are trained through ITE, become qualified and speak Irish at a level that means that they can teach a subject in the medium of Irish, just say, "I do not really want to; I am not going to stay in Northern Ireland, I am going to go somewhere else"? If the majority of those teachers stayed in the IME sector, would that solve the problem of not having enough teachers?

Ms McMurray: There are two aspects to that. In its report, Comhairle na Gaelscolaíochta — I am going to call it CnaG as well from now on —

Mr Martin: You are doing better than I am, Sinead.

Ms McMurray: — noted in its figures — I will have to go back and look — that the number of primary and secondary teachers who are predicted to graduate will not cover the predicted growth in the sector.

Mr Martin: OK.

Ms McMurray: Undoubtedly, were the majority of those teachers who qualified to stay in the profession, that would go a long way towards —.

Mr Martin: Got it. CnaG is saying that, even if the majority of graduates chose to teach in the IME sector, that would probably not cover the requirement, but it would go a distance towards filling the gap. Is that fair enough?

Ms McMurray: Absolutely. It would say that, on paper, the number of graduates for IME primary is quite healthy, but the group that is choosing not to pursue a career in IME seems to be part of the issue.

Mr Martin: That is really interesting. That was not where I was trying to go with this. It was just that I did not know the answers to those questions. That is not necessarily something that Pat's Bill or the Department of Education can solve. That is just young teachers making a career choice about what they want to do. You cannot force them into a particular sector. You can incentivise them; that has been happening with the bursaries that were announced by the Minister last year across a number of STEM subjects. That is just people saying, "I've graduated, I am fluent in Irish, I can do this here or there, but no, I am going to teach somewhere else or in a different sector". I am just flagging that up. It is worth the Committee noting that some of the problems that the Bill seeks to address are being created indirectly by graduates' career choices. I support their choices completely — it is not for me to say — but they are choosing to do something other than x.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): In the interests of time, I will ask you to stop there.

Mr Martin: That is OK, Chair; I had only one question.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): You make a good point. It will be worth picking it up with Comhairle na Gaelscolaíochta when it is here.

Ms McMurray: Absolutely. There is an element of personal choice in that. There are recruitment issues across the sector, not just at primary level. There may be initiatives that could be undertaken to promote IME as a career and to develop people's interest in it. There is work that could be done around that. You are right; I do not know whether that can come about in the course of the Bill, but it is worth flagging it up.

Mr Sheehan: I understand Peter's point. Young students who qualify will make career choices. Some of them will go to the South perhaps for geographical reasons or perhaps because there are higher salaries there. I know a person who was a principal of an Irish-medium school in Newry and transferred to Monaghan or Cavan — I cannot remember which — because there was far less bureaucracy and far more money. Those things happen. It was just across the border from where she lives. Similarly, some young students who qualify may not have an Irish-medium school to teach in close to where they live, which may mean travelling long distances. Of course, there are other young people who want to travel now, whether it is to go to Dubai to make some money or to Australia or New Zealand to have a certain lifestyle. There are 100,000 Irish-born people in Australia at the minute. There are all those issues. That does not cover the whole area of teacher shortages, however.

One of the issues that has been flagged up to me is the fact that it is almost impossible to find a third-level course in a STEM subject along with Irish. Most of the courses that run alongside Irish are in the humanities. That is an issue. There is also the issue that the Chair touched on, which is about wraparound support in speech and language, educational psychology, behavioural therapy and all that. The other issue that we should flag up is that there is also a shortage of STEM teachers in English-medium schools. One reason for that is that a lot of those people are snapped up by IT companies, which pay much bigger salaries than teachers get. That is just commentary more than anything else.

I will drift off a wee bit towards the Irish language strategy, which is not the Education Department's remit. We have been waiting for over 20 years for an Irish language strategy. Conradh na Gaeilge has been in the courts three times, including as recently as January this year. We are still waiting for an Irish language strategy. The Minister has said that he will bring forward an Irish-medium strategy by mid-2027, after the next election. Do you have any definitive evidence to suggest that there will be an Irish-medium strategy here by mid-2027?

Ms McMurray: The only evidence is the commitment that the Minister has made. He has also indicated that there will be some provision around developments in special educational needs. Outside the date that you have just stated, mid-2027, and the fact that he has talked about one or two pillars, including SEN in particular, no, I have no other information to provide on that.

Mr Sheehan: On the article 89 obligation, which is the statutory duty to encourage and facilitate Irish-medium education, the Court of Appeal stated that the statutory duty is intended to have practical consequences and legislative significance. However, the research by Conradh na Gaeilge and the Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ) suggests that there is a significant gap in practice when it comes to the implementation of that statutory duty. Can you point to any change in that? The research was in 2022. Since then, have you come across anything in your research to show that the article 89 statutory duty has been implemented in the way that it should have been?

Ms McMurray: The Department has undertaken a range of initiatives, more recently, as I said, around bursaries, and Irish-medium education has been included as one of the subjects receiving that extra money. Some progress has been made around —.

Mr Sheehan: Does that come under the statutory duty? Would the statutory duty not be outside what a Minister would have to do anyway as part of his obligations to the Irish-medium sector?

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Please answer briefly to bring that one to a close.

Ms McMurray: Sorry, will you repeat the question?

Mr Sheehan: The Minister said that he was going to introduce bursaries.

Ms McMurray: Yes.

Mr Sheehan: That was not specifically for the Irish-medium sector.

Ms McMurray: No.

Mr Sheehan: It was for all sectors.

Ms McMurray: Yes.

Mr Sheehan: I do not see that as an example of a Minister using his statutory duty to fulfil his obligation to Irish-medium education. The statutory duty to encourage and facilitate Irish-medium education specifically is a separate issue.

I will give an example of that. In order for a school to appear on the capital builds list, it has to meet a number of criteria. I think that there are four or five. I do not remember them all, but one of them relates to enrolment figures. A post-primary school has to reach a threshold of 500 pupils. Gaelcholáiste Dhoire applied to be on that capital builds list, although it had not reached the enrolment threshold. Gaelcholáiste Dhoire provided the enrolment projections for the next five to 10 years, which well exceeded the threshold. That Minister could have said, "Under my statutory duty to encourage and facilitate, I will include Gaelcholáiste Dhoire". The statutory duty effectively gives a Minister some flexibility. Have you seen any evidence of that flexibility being used in such a way?

Ms McMurray: No, not in anything that I have looked at. A range of initiatives on Irish-medium education have been introduced, but I have not seen a specific example like that.

Mr Sheehan: OK. That is all.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Thank you, Deputy Chair.

I do not have any other indications, so thank you for your paper and evidence. You are free to leave at this stage.