Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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114. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills his plans to extend the redeployment pilot scheme for secondary school teachers to include counties Cork, Clare and Limerick; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23694/17]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The core function of the redeployment arrangements has been to facilitate the redeployment of surplus permanent and CID holding teachers to other schools that have vacancies.  The redeployment of all surplus permanent teachers is key to my Department's ability to manage within its payroll budget and ceiling on teacher numbers.

A voluntary redeployment scheme operated on a pilot basis in the Munster region, including counties Cork, Clare and Limerick, in 2015 and 2016.  All permanent teachers in Munster were given an opportunity to volunteer for a transfer to other areas if such a transfer would free up a vacancy that would facilitate the redeployment of a surplus permanent teacher in the region.

The arrangement previously operated on a pilot basis in Connaught to facilitate the redeployment of surplus teachers in this region.

In 2017 the pilot voluntary redeployment scheme operates in counties Tipperary, Laois, Offaly, Westmeath and Longford.  My Department has no plans to extend the redeployment scheme to other counties in 2017.

 The criteria used for the allocation of teachers to post-primary schools for the 2017/18 school year, including the redeployment arrangements for the 2017/18 school year, is available on the Department's website education.ie.