Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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284. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if a person (details supplied) has any rights with regard to the FTC in 2010, including maternity leave cover, job sharing and so on. [13224/17]

Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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285. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if a person (details supplied) leaves the ASTI, the way in which they can make themselves available to his Department to go back into the Haddington Road agreement. [13225/17]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 284 and 285 together.

Decisions in respect of union membership are a matter for individual teachers and my Department does not have a position on this issue.  Where teachers have questions as to the implications of joining or leaving a particular union, their questions should be directed to the relevant union.

The current position is that the Lansdowne Road Agreement as set out in Section 2 of Circular 0045/2016 applies to teachers employed in Education and Training Board schools and centres (apart from Designated Community Colleges). The Agreement also applies to teachers employed in Designated Community Colleges, Community and Comprehensive Schools and Voluntary Secondary Schools who are TUI members. The Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest Acts 2013 and 2015 as set out in Section 3 of the Circular applies to all other teachers employed in such schools. Circular 0045/2016 can be accessed at

One of the benefits of the Lansdowne Road Agreement is the continuation of the Ward Report measures, which enable fixed-term and part-time teachers to gain permanent, full-time jobs more easily and quickly than before. The terms of the Report, as set out in Circular 0024/2015, reduced the service threshold from ‘in excess of 4 years’ to ‘in excess of 2 years’ in the case of a first Contract of Indefinite Duration (CID) and ‘in excess of 1 year’ in the case of a subsequent CID.

Arising from the ASTI’s repudiation of the Lansdowne Road Agreement, the improved CID arrangements set out in the Ward Report have been withdrawn in respect of teachers not covered by the Lansdowne Road Agreement. CID arrangements for such teachers have reverted to the previous arrangements, set out in Circular 0034/2009 which can be accessed at:

An adjudication system exists which allows teachers who have been refused a CID, or who are unhappy with the hours of the CID where one is awarded, to submit an appeal to an independent Adjudicator for consideration. An appeal must be lodged within four weeks of the date that the teacher is notified of the decision by the employer to refuse a CID (or the date that the teacher is notified of the award and terms of the CID whose terms they are disputing). It would therefore not be possible to lodge an appeal at this stage in respect of a fixed-term contract held in the 2010/11 school year.