Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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180. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills further to Parliamentary Question No. 219 of 24 June 2014, if she will provide, in tabular form, the number of derogations to the five-year secondment limit that have been decided by her Department; the post in question; the reason for the derogation; the date the decision to derogate was made; and the details of any input that she or Oireachtas Members had in each case. [17912/15]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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My Department, through the teacher support services and education centres, engages teachers on a full time basis annually for the provision of continuing professional development (CPD) through secondment from their schools. These secondments are subject to annual review. The arrangements provide flexibility and ensure that the in-service needs of teachers and other support priorities of the school system can be met within the resources available.

Having teachers with relevant and recent teaching experience and expertise is a key requirement for the role. It is a condition therefore that the maximum length of time that a teacher may be on secondment is five years, following which they return to their teaching roles within their schools. In this way, their expertise and knowledge is not lost to the system. These teacher secondment arrangements were disseminated extensively so the necessary planning could take place at all levels including education centres, support services, school boards of management and individual teacher.

The support services have engaged in succession planning as a key strategy in ensuring continued support for teachers and school leaders in implementing national education policy priorities and CPD and which allows for continuity, quality planning and management.

An alleviation of the application of the five year limit, up to 10% of the posts where required, has been agreed to allow secondees to serve for a further limited period. My officials consulted with the support services to determine the exemptions to apply in 2015/16.

It is Department policy to apply the alleviation to positions where seconded teachers take on leadership roles or have a specialism or expertise where retention is necessary for continuity, quality planning and management.

The implementation of this policy is a matter for the services concerned and the relevant section of my Department.

The detail of the number of derogated posts for each support service will be supplied to the Deputy directly.