Clare Daly (Dublin North, Socialist Party)
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Question 236: To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if he will reverse the cut of permanent learning support teacher in a school (details supplied) in County Dublin. [4042/12]

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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The new simplified approach to the General Allocation Model of support for schools will make it easier to automatically update it annually in line with the changes in the number of classroom teachers in each school. Schools will also have autonomy on how to deploy the resource between language support and learning support depending on their specific needs. The overall objective of the reforms is to enable the teacher allocation process to operate more smoothly and efficiently within the new climate of fixed ceilings on teacher numbers.

The arrangements for the staffing allocation under the General Allocation Model (GAM) are specifically designed to facilitate GAM hours being clustered into full-time posts – either entirely within their own school or with a nearby neighbouring school.

These reforms are intended to be neutral in relation to the overall number of teaching posts allocated to schools. However, because many of the changes are designed to bring a more equitable distribution of existing posts between schools there will inevitably be some schools that will lose posts and other schools that will gain posts.