Mr. Herbert Loftus:

In terms of contracts of fairness, the Gaeltacht schools had a much more favourable schedule. The standardisation with all other small schools was done as part of the attempt to achieve budget savings. In that context, it occurred as a result of a policy decision by the Government and I cannot comment upon that. However, part of that policy decision was to treat all small schools equally. The only differentiation made was in respect of DEIS band 1 schools, which are the most disadvantaged. All other small schools were treated in the same way. I tried to make the point earlier that if one compares this to the type of change that was implemented - via the budgetary process - by the previous Government in respect of gaelscoileanna, which had a more favourable staffing schedule, one will see that this was done in one go and that there was no appeals process. For the Gaeltacht schools, this was done on a phased basis and an appeals process was put in place.

Savings relating to redeployment are achieved by way of the Department not being obliged to foot an additional cost for filling teaching vacancies in other schools through the recruitment of new teachers. This year, for example, a total of 400 surplus permanent teachers were on our redeployment panels. Approximately, 80% to 90% of these have already been redeployed. The redeployment of these teachers - some of whom came from Gaeltacht schools - saves the Department the additional cost of employing 400 new teachers if it did not redeploy. All of those teachers will be redeployed to take up vacancies in other schools. Surplus permanent teachers are protected under the Croke Park agreement that was previous in place - the Haddington Road agreement will also apply to them - and they can be redeployed to fill vacancies where they arise.