When the moratorium was introduced the Government exempted Principal and Deputy Principal appointments in all primary and post-primary schools and these continue to be replaced in the normal manner. The impact of the moratorium is therefore limited to the Assistant Principal and Special Duties allowances payable to teachers on promotion.
Unlike other areas of the public service retirement vacancies are actually being filled and what the school loses is the capacity to make a promotion by awarding the extra pay allowance to another teacher. The position whereby just over 50% of all teachers have promotion allowances is simply not sustainable.
I do recognise that the impact of the moratorium is uneven across schools and as I have already acknowledged the impact is not just due to the level of retirements but also as a consequence of promotions that are made to principal and deputy principal posts. Further retirements and promotions later this year will impact further on middle management posts. As I have indicated previously to the House I am prepared to look at this and see what limited interim alleviation can be given to deal with those cases while the overall number of promotion positions continues to reduce.
My Department, like other Government Departments, is in discussions with the Department of Finance in relation to a Public Sector Numbers Control Framework. It is only in the context of such a framework for the education sector and where an overall long term reduction in the number of promotion allowances is brought about that the position of some individual schools could be addressed for September next.
