Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Question 463: To ask the Minister for Education and Science if a school (details supplied) in County Mayo will be allowed to retain its existing number of teachers. [7073/09]

Batt O'Keeffe (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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The 2009 Budget required difficult choices to be made across all areas of public expenditure. These decisions were made to control public expenditure and to ensure sustainability in the long run. In this respect Education, while protected to a much greater extent than most other areas of public expenditure, could not be totally spared. The various impacts at school level were included in the Budget day announcements. Even with the budget measures in place there will still be a significantly increased borrowing requirement in 2009.

The staffing schedule for the 2009/2010 school year, Primary Circular 0002/2009, has been published on my Department's website at www.education.ie and my officials have written to all schools to notify them in this regard. The schedule is a transparent and clear way of ensuring that schools are treated consistently and fairly and know where they stand. The allocation process includes appellate mechanisms under which schools can appeal against the allocation due to them under the staffing schedule. The final allocation to a school is also a function of the operation of the redeployment panels which provide for the retention of a teacher in an existing school if a new post is not available within the agreed terms of the scheme.

The appeal process is set out in the Staffing Schedule and the first meeting of the Appeal Board will take place in May, 2009. It is open to the school referred to by the Deputy to apply under this process on the standard application form which is available on my Department's website, www.education.ie. The closing date for application for initial Appeal Board meeting is 29 April, 2009.