Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 17 May 2016
269. Deputy Mattie McGrath asked the Minister for Education and Skills if he is aware of the challenges facing teachers under the existing panel process who are seeking redeployment to a different location; to amend the regulations to allow more flexibility; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9744/16]
View answerThe core function of the redeployment arrangements is to facilitate the redeployment of all surplus permanent teachers to other schools that have vacancies. The redeployment of all surplus permanent teachers is key to the Department's ability to manage within its payroll budget and ceiling on teacher numbers.
Thereafter, schools are required under the panel arrangements to fill permanent vacancies from supplementary panels comprised of eligible fixed-term (temporary/substitute) and part-time teachers. The redeployment arrangements are published annually in the staffing circular which is placed on the Department website. The redeployment arrangements for the 2016/17 school year are set out in Circular 0007/2016 which is available on the website. The arrangements for access to the supplementary panel were published in Circular 0058/2015 which is also available on the website.
The staffing and redeployment process for the 2016/17 school year is currently underway in my Department.
Redeployment panels are drawn up on a diocesan basis for Catholic panels, diocesan/united diocesan basis for Church of Ireland panels and on a national basis for other patron bodies. The detail relating to numbers on individual redeployment panels is placed on the Department website when the panels are published each year.
Outside of this process the administration of transfer requests from teachers placed on redeployment panels is at the discretion of individual panel operators (i.e. the patron bodies).
