A body that will supervise and monitor standards in the teaching profession and advise Government in policy decisions affecting teachers is to be unveiled in Dublin today.
The Teaching Council is an independent statutory body, which will have the power to examine the fitness of teachers to teach and, if appropriate, impose sanctions up to and including deregistration.
Minister for Education and Science Mary Hanafin will be joined in Dublin today by its first chairwoman, Ms Áine Lawlor, who is a former primary school principal.
All primary and post-primary teachers will have to be registered with the Teaching Council to qualify to teach in a state school and to be paid by the Exchequer.
Teachers hold 22 of the 37 seats on the Teaching Council. Sixteen seats were filled last November using an gender-balanced method in which all registered and fully qualified teachers were entitled to vote.
The rest were nominated by the teaching unions, school managers, teacher-training institutions, and parent associations, as well as by the Minister for Education.
There was, however, a low turnout with only an estimated 40 per cent of the State's 50,000 teachers returning their ballots.
The full list of those elected is:
At primary level: Mr Seán Rowley, Ms Maree O'Connell, Mr Micheál O Griobhtha, Ms Joan Ward, Ms Dympna Mulkerrins, Mr Milo Walsh, Mr Justin McCarthy, Ms Mary Culhane and Ms Eileen Ward.
At secondary level: Mr John Keane, Mr Dermot Quish, Ms Bernadine O'Sullivan, Mr Tommy Glynn, Ms Susie Hall, Ms Elizabeth Cronin and Mr Patrick McQuaile.