The Department of Education has revealed that 144 teachers without proper qualifications are teaching in secondary schools.
In a Dail reply from the Minister for Education, Dr Woods, to Labour Party TD Ms Mary Upton, the Department said it was assessing the qualifications of 119 of the teachers.
"The remaining 25 are not fully recognised either because of a lack of a required training-in-teaching qualification or a recognised qualification in the specific subject(s) of the teaching post held," said the reply.
The Department said its information was that all the teachers were "not in receipt of qualification allowances" and this meant "they are not regarded as fully qualified for the teaching posts which they hold".
This is the first time in recent years official figures for the number of unqualified teachers at second level have been released. The figures are much lower than those at primary level.
However, the second-level figures do not take account of the number of unqualified teachers working part-time.
Mr George O'Callaghan, general secretary of the Joint Managerial Body, which represents the majority of school managers, said the figures showed how acute the problem of getting teachers was.
"Considering the size of the overall teaching force, I think the figures are relatively small, but there is no doubt some schools are having to go to increasing lengths to get teaching staff.
"The profession needs to be made more attractive or else people will not go into it. Until that happens schools will continue to find themselves searching around for teachers."
Mr O'Callaghan said the problem of getting substitute teachers was even worse. He called on the Department of Education to set up "a properly funded and staffed supply service for teacher substitution as soon as possible".
He said teachers often stopped teaching unexpectedly for personal reasons and schools had to replace them at short notice. He said this was a major problem because there was a "shrinking" pool of substitutes and many were not prepared to travel to schools in remote locations.
Meanwhile, another survey released yesterday by the Dublin Inner City Partnership said 19 per cent of primary teachers were not qualified in inner-city schools. It said this was very "disturbing".
The survey of 76 teachers in 10 inner-city schools revealed that 75 per cent of teachers in these schools did not believe they had been "adequately prepared" for the role.