The Education Minister insists that if substitute teacher panels need to be increased, the government WILL consider such a move.
School principals are continuing to report difficulties in finding substitutes since the new school year started, especially in subjects such as science, maths, languages and home economics.
Minister Norma Foley says a range of measures have already been announced to tackle the problem, but they will be kept under review:
"There has been huge engagement from the partners in education in terms of finding a variety of different measures and putting them in place. And so, you know, we continue to keep everything under review and indeed even in relation to the panels, we continue to keep that under review, and if there is a requirement for further addition to it, we will do that as well going forward."
