Mr. Hubert Loftus:

Thank you, Chairman. I will deal with the questions regarding teacher allocations. The increases in staffing schedules were introduced in budget 2012 and are being phased over a three-year period. The decision to do so was not taken lightly. It was done because the Department had a tight budget to manage, with no additional money available to us, and it was necessary to make difficult choices in order to achieve savings. This is one of the cost-saving measures that was selected. It was done as fairly as possible in terms of phased increases and the introduction, for the first time, of an appeals process in respect of projected enrolments.

This budget measure is designed to achieve total savings of €15 million per annum when fully implemented, yielding 250 posts over a three-year period. The phased structure means that the projected savings are 100 in the first year, 75 in year two and 75 in year three, giving a total of 250. For 2012, which is year one of the three-year process, approximately two thirds of the projected savings were achieved. That number would probably have been closer to the full initial projection if the appeals process was not in place. We are anxious, however, to ease the picture as best as possible.

Where posts are lost, teachers are redeployed. In 2012, as again in 2013, we were working in a climate where no school could be left with a surplus permanent teacher. We are operating a system of 100% redeployment. In fact, we are one of the most effective sectors within the public service in terms of staff redeployment. We achieved our 100% deployment target in 2012 and expect to do the same this year. Our approach in this regard is that any school vacancy is not fillable until the 100% target is achieved.

Deputy Brendan Griffin referred to the impact of the loss of six jobs. Those schools will have teachers remaining, who will have extra pupils in their classes. One of the greatest impacts we must bear in mind relates to the very significant increases in our demographics. We want to avoid a situation where in those areas which are experiencing significant demographic growth, there would be classrooms with no teacher because the payroll does not support it. We are operating in a context whereby overall teacher numbers in our schools, even with the impact of this and other budget measures that affect schools at both primary and post-primary level, will be higher this coming September than they were last September. The challenge is to balance the requirement for difficult budget decisions against the reality of increasing enrolments. We are trying to stretch our money as far as we can, and that, unfortunately, necessitates difficult decisions.

In terms of the number of schools affected, our records show 132, which does not quite match up with the figure of 142 that was mentioned. We will clarify this issue with our statistics section and come back to the committee. Some of the information coming through that section is not broken down to the same level of detail for every category of school.

Senator Marie Moloney asked whether this particular measure could be open to legal challenge. The reality is that any measure is potentially open to such challenge, in which case it is up to the courts to decide. We would vigorously defend our position that we have been fair and reasonable in the approach we have taken with this and other budget measures. We are working with finite resources and cannot do everything we could do in the past. Some of the historical arrangements we have discussed were introduced at a time when demographics were declining and we had a great deal more money. We are in the opposite scenario now and must cut our cloth to measure.