1. The initiative for an amalgamation may come from the school’s patron/ trustees or from the Department of Education and Skills.
2. On receipt of a proposal from the patron/trustees, the Department of Education and Skills will notify the INTO and CPSMA and give the information below insofar as it is available at the time:
- Numbers and distribution of school population;
- Future demographic projections for the area;
- Deployment of teaching staff involved; and
- The condition of the schools.
3. The patron/trustees or the boards of management will notify the parents and teachers, and arrange a process of consultation with both.
4. Before an amalgamation takes place teachers and parents involved in the amalgamation will be consulted and the Department of Education and Skills will satisfy itself in each case that such consultation has taken place. Arrangements regarding staffing and, where applicable, free transport, must be recorded in writing. The following arrangements will apply:
- The principal of the amalgamated school will be appointed from among the principals of the schools being amalgamated.
- Privileged assistants will retain, for the remainder of their teaching career, the level of a principal’s allowance appropriate to their former school unless they are appointed to a post of responsibility carrying a higher allowance.
- Where a teacher has given continuous, unbroken, permanent service in one or more of the schools being amalgamated, the aggregate of that service will be reckoned in determining seniority.
- Amalgamation of Lay and Religious Schools:
- Where a lay school amalgamates into a religious school the new school remains classified as a religious school and appointments are made according to paragraph 23(d) Constitution of Boards and Rules of Procedure.
- Where a religious school amalgamates into a central or lay school the religious community involved has the right, when a vacancy arises, within six years of the date of the amalgamation, to nominate a member of the community to that vacancy so that the number of religious involved at the time of the amalgamation may be maintained.
- Nothing in paragraphs (a) or (b) shall preclude members of a Religious Congregation from being applicants for appointment to a vacancy in the school under the terms of Rule 23(a) and (b).
- Amalgamated schools will be allowed to replace teachers who leave within one year of an amalgamation, subject to the average enrolment at the time being sufficient to maintain the post on the concession retention figures.
- Where a teaching post is suppressed in an amalgamated school, the teacher most junior in the order of seniority, whether lay or religious, (as established in paragraph (c) above) will, on becoming redundant, be entitled to have her/his name placed on the addendum to the appropriate panel.
- Those teachers who are required to move to another school under the terms of the addendum to the panel will retain their addendum panel rights in the school in which they are placed from the panel. Addendum panel rights are relinquished in the event of a teacher resigning/retiring from the staff of the school.
- The conditions governing the eligibility of pupils for free transport from the amalgamating school area to the school of amalgamation must be clearly defined.
5. When a decision to amalgamate has been made, applicants for teaching posts at the school concerned will be informed at appointment interviews of the pending amalgamation. The appointment of teachers to schools which are designated “Pending Amalgamation” will be on a permanent basis except where there is a likelihood of the amalgamation being effected within twelve months of the date of appointment.
Note: The contract of employment between the teacher and the board of management constitutes recognised service under clause 4 (c) of this agreement.