Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)
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140. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills when a decision will issue on an appeal in respect of a school (details supplied) in County Waterford to have its concessionary post retained; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [5026/15]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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Budget 2012 provided for the phased withdrawal of approximately 428 posts allocated to some schools under disadvantage programmes prior to the introduction of DEIS in 2005. Due to conflicting reports of posts being lost in these schools, my Department produced a report on the impact of the withdrawal of these legacy posts from DEIS Band 1 and Band 2 Schools. Following the Government's decision of 21 February 2012 in the matter, a number of schools continued to retain disadvantaged legacy posts from previous disadvantage schemes on a year to year basis and only where warranted, based on the enrolment of the previous 30th September. The criteria used for the allocation of teachers to primary schools is published annually on the website of the Department of Education and Skills. The key factor for determining the level of staffing resources provided at individual school level is the staffing schedule for the relevant school year and pupil enrolments on the previous 30 September. The staffing arrangements for the 2014/15 school year (Circular 0007/2014) were published in January 2014.

A range of factors contribute to determining the staffing requirement for individual schools including changes to enrolment and the reforms to the teacher allocation process introduced in 2012. As the teaching allocation to schools, including disadvantage legacy posts, are enrolment based, this determines whether schools gain or lose posts from year to year.

As the school referred to by the Deputy saw an increase in enrolment on 30th September 2013, the post was subsumed into the mainstream staffing of the school for the 2014/15 school year.

The school submitted a staffing appeal to the February 2014 meeting of the Primary Staffing Appeals Board. The Appeals Board determined that the application did not satisfy all of the published criteria as set out in Circular 0007/2014. The Appeals Board operates independently of the Department and its decision is final.