Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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Question 12: To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the reason his Department has not facilitated a panel of teachers for Gaelscoileanna while facilitating panels for all other patronages in view of redundancies in the primary sector and the prohibition on permanent appointments in the primary sector; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5502/11]

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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Over half of the Gaelscoileanna are under catholic patronage and the redeployment of surplus teachers from these schools is through the relevant diocesan panels.

My Department had discussions recently with An Foras Pátrúnachta in relation to its request for a separate panel for Gaelscoileanna under its patronage. These discussions are on-going and a key issue for my Department is how best to facilitate this request in a manner that avoids the inherent inefficiencies of a separate panel for a relatively small number of schools. Given our budgetary situation we need to have sufficient flexibility in the redeployment arrangements to ensure that surplus teachers in all schools regardless of patronage type can be readily redeployed to vacancies wherever they exist.

The existing arrangements for the redeployment of surplus teachers operate between schools of the same patronage and are not certain to bring about the redeloyment of all surplus teachers. To address the current limitations my Department will be seeking in the coming period to conclude discussions with the relevant education partners, including An Foras Pátrúnachta, on changes necessary to achieve our objective of absorbing all surplus teachers into vacancies that exist in other schools. These discussions will also deal with the request for a separate redeployment panel for Gaelscoileanna under the patronage of An Foras Pátrúnachta.