Taxpayers shell out €100m in decade on 'surplus' teachers [Independent.ie]
- Published: 08 March 2011
MORE than 170 "surplus" teachers are still employed in Irish schools at a cost of €10m a year to the taxpayer.
One secondary school in Athlone, Co Westmeath, has eight teachers over its official quota and has had for years.
Two others each have seven teachers too many and three schools each have six teachers too many.
The issue has persisted for years and is only now being seriously addressed in order to cut public spending.
In the past decade, around €100m has been spent paying the salaries of "surplus" teachers, who were not redeployed even though they were above the school's official quota.
A Department of Education spokesperson said the schools concerned would continue in the short term to have the extra teachers under the teacher allocation rules applying to schools generally.
"The numbers surplus are posts they continued to hold in the absence of redeployment arrangements," she said.
"The introduction of new redeployment arrangements is intended to deal with the surplus".
When the new scheme comes into effect, the surplus teachers will be moved to other second-level schools, as part of the Croke Park agreement.
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