IT WAS not sustainable to have more than 50 per cent of teachers holding special posts in schools in the future, Minister for Education Batt O’Keeffe warned in the Dáil.

The cost of posts of responsibility was quite significant, he said, amounting to €236 million annually. He had been consulting with Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan on the issue, “and I would hope we would be in a position to finalise those discussions in the not too distant future’’.

Mr O’Keeffe said retirements at primary level, since the introduction of the moratorium in March 2009, were 309 principals, 258 deputy principals, 141 assistant principals and 214 teachers with posts of responsibility.

The equivalent figures for the post-primary sector were approximately 100 principals, 75 deputy principals, 660 assistant principals and 150 teachers with posts of responsibility.

He said that when the moratorium was introduced, the Government exempted principal and deputy principal appointments in all primary and post-primary schools and these continued to be replaced in the normal manner.

“The impact of the moratorium, therefore, is limited to the assistant principal and special duties allowances payable to teachers on promotion,” he added.

Fine Gael spokesman Brian Hayes said 810 posts had been lost at post-primary level and 355 at primary level. “This is very serious,” he said, adding that the process was “a blunt instrument”.

Mr Hayes said that it was causing absolute havoc in some schools where there had been a large number of retirements.

He urged the Minister to accept a Fine Gael proposal whereby there would be a “minimum floor” of appointments in schools.

Mr O’Keeffe said that some schools were badly hit, and he was discussing with the Minister for Finance how to alleviate some of the serious difficulties involved.