Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Harrington for giving me the opportunity to outline to the House the position regarding staffing in primary schools, and in particular in our island primary schools. The Department treats schools fairly and objectively in allocating resources to them. This is done in a transparent manner using published criteria. Teaching resources are allocated to schools on a school-year basis.

The criteria used for the allocation of teachers to schools is published annually on the Department's website. The key factor for determining the level of staffing resources provided at individual school level is the national staffing schedule for the relevant school year and the specific pupil enrolments in the school in question on the previous 30 September. The staffing schedule sets out in a fair and transparent manner the pupil thresholds for the allocation of mainstream classroom posts for all schools. These arrangements include the provision whereby schools experiencing rapid increases in enrolment can apply for additional permanent mainstream posts on developing grounds, using projected enrolment based on 30 September of the coming school year.

Special provisions are in place for island schools which take account of the circumstances that arise, as the Deputy has outlined, in providing education in an island setting. This means that, unlike the generality of schools, in the event a reduction in the pupil numbers of an island school will result in the loss of the second or third classroom teaching post in the school, the post may be retained subject to certain pupil retention levels. In the case of the second mainstream post the total number of pupils must be at eight or above and the school must be the only primary school remaining on the island. In all other two teacher schools the number of pupils required to retain a second teacher is far higher, at 17. This shows how favourable the staffing arrangements in place are for primary schools which are the only school on an island.

The enrolment date of 30 September is the date used for allocating resources to all schools. I do not see any need to introduce a system of allocating resources based on a later date in the school year for certain schools such as that suggested by the Deputy. This is not practical and would impact negatively on the allocation and redeployment process and timeframes.

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