Main Panel

As a permanent teacher, you are entitled to redeployment via the Main Panel, to a position within a 45km radius of your current school and under the same patronage. In order to access the Main Panel, you must submit a Main Panel Application Form to DE Allocations by 29 February.

You may also defer your access to the Main Panel in order to take up a career break or a job share, or to take up a fixed-term post in your own school or to go on secondment.

If you wish to defer you access to the Main Panel, you will still submit a Main Panel Application Form, but should also send in a Main Panel Update Form, advising DE Allocations of your intention to defer your Panel rights.

You may defer your access to the Main Panel for up to five years.

As a CID-holding teacher, if your school has a permanent or fixed-term vacancy for you in 2024/25, you will be retained by your current school.

If there is neither a permanent or fixed-term post for you, and you are the most junior teacher on staff, you are entitled to redeployment via the Main Panel, to a position within a 45km radius of your current school and under the same patronage. In order to access the Main Panel, you must submit a Main Panel Application Form to DE Allocations by 29 February.

You may defer your access to the Main Panel in order to take up a career break or a job share.

If you wish to defer you access to the Main Panel, you will still submit a Main Panel Application Form, but should also send in a Main Panel Update Form, advising DE Allocations of your intention to defer your Panel rights.

You may defer your access to the Main Panel for up to five years.

The most junior permanent teacher, whose permanent post has been supressed, is entitled to redeployment via the Main Panel.

However, if they wish, they may defer their Main Panel rights in order to take up an available fixed-term job, by submitting a Main Panel Application Form, and a Main Panel Update Form.

If they choose to exercise this option, and therefore a CID holding teacher does not have a fixed-term vacancy for the coming year, the most junior CID holding teacher will be placed on the Main Panel.

Redeployment

You can take your place on the Main Panel for jobs arising in 2024/25.

You may commence a new permanent post while on Maternity Leave, and you will be entitled to Unpaid Maternity Leave, and to apply for your Parent’s Leave and Parental Leave, subject to the same conditions you have now.

 Exemption from the Main Panel

You may apply for an exemption from the Main Panel for the duration of your paid and unpaid maternity leave.

Per question 5.1 of the DE Redeployment FAQ:

Teachers may be exempt from the redeployment panel in the case of maternity for a period of 6 months prior to the birth of their baby and up to the end of their maternity leave, either paid or unpaid. The expectant due date must be forwarded with the application for exemption. In the case of adoption, teachers may be exempt from the redeployment panel up to the end of adoptive leave.

Teachers seeking exemption must apply for the exemption within 5 days of placement on the redeployment panel. The teacher will remain on the panel for the period of exemption. Schools will be advised of the exemption.

During the period of exemption the teacher will remain in their former school pending their redeployment. The teacher cannot be allocated a mainstream class. The teacher must act as replacement teacher for absences of other teachers in the school. The Department will not pay the cost of a replacement teacher for the period of maternity/adoptive leave.

If a permanent post arises in the teacher’s school during the exemption period, the exempted teacher is automatically reinstated to the permanent post providing the teacher is the most senior permanent/CID holding teacher who has an exemption from the panel.

If a permanent post arises in another school during the period of exemption, the Board of Management / ETB may offer the post to the teacher but it is not obliged to do so. Likewise the teacher is not obliged to accept the offer. Refusal of such an offer will not cause the teacher to forfeit her panel access.

The Department will put arrangements in place to ensure that a teacher in a school with a maternity/adoption exemption is utilised to the greatest extent possible to minimise overall salary costs for the Department.

To apply for an exemption, teachers must complete the Panel Update Form and forward it to the Department’s Primary Teacher Allocations Section within 5 days of their placement on the redeployment panel. It is advised that teachers retain proof of postage.

Deferring your Main Panel rights to take up a fixed-term post in your own school

A permanent teacher who is being redeployed can defer their Main Panel rights to take up a fixed-term post in their own school. This does not affect your status as a permanent teacher.

If you defer your Main Panel rights to take up a fixed-term job in your own school, you will apply for your paid Maternity Leave as normal, to your current school, and you will have access to Unpaid Maternity Leave, Parent’s Leave, and Parental Leave. Your school will employ a substitute to cover your absence, the same as if your permanent post hadn’t been lost.

If you defer your Main Panel rights, or if you avail of an exemption from the Main Panel, and a permanent post arises in your current school, you will be automatically reinstated as permanent.

Per the DE Redeployment FAQ:

In exceptional circumstances, the most junior permanent/CID holding teacher may seek the approval of the Board of Management/ETB to be replaced on the panel by an alternative permanent/CID holding teacher in the same school.

If the most junior permanent/CID holding teacher seeks to be replaced on the panel, any other permanent/CID holding teacher interested in going on the panel must communicate his/her position to the Chairperson/CEO ETB within five working days of the issuing of the staffing schedule.

If more than one permanent/CID holding teacher applies to be placed on the panel in place of the most junior permanent/CID holding teacher, the BoM/ETB will consider all applications.

The BoM/ETB will decide whether to accept the application of the most junior permanent/CID teacher to be replaced on the panel by any other permanent/CID holding teacher.

Where it decides that the most junior permanent/CID holding teacher can be replaced on the panel, it will determine which of the applicant permanent/CID holding teachers is to replace the most junior permanent/CID holding teacher.

The chosen teacher must apply to the Patron for permission to go on to the Panel in place of the most junior permanent/CID holding teacher in the school.

The final decision to admit a teacher to a panel rests with the Patron, who shall be given the reasons when it is intended to replace the most junior permanent/CID holding teacher.

Note: Teachers with specified purpose or fixed term contracts and substitute teachers in the school cannot replace the most junior permanent/CID holding teacher on the Main Redeployment Panel.

The purpose of the Main Panel is to ensure that permanent and CID holding teachers will remain in paid employment if their post is lost. It is not intended to facilitate the relocation of teachers.

Permanent teachers transferring between dioceses or panel areas is at the sole discretion of the panel operator of the panel the teacher wishes to move to.

Teachers seeking to transfer between dioceses or panels would have to contact the relevant panel operator and seek their permission to transfer. There is no obligation on panel operators to consider transfers from other panels.

With the written permission of the panel operator of the panel the teacher wishes to move to, confirming they are willing to accept the teacher onto their main panel, the teacher would also seek written confirmation from the panel operator where they are currently employed that they will be released.

Confirmation from both panel operators should be forwarded to DE Primary Allocations to complete the transfer.

If you secure a panel transfer, you will need to nominate a school in the new panel area as the centre of your 45km radius for redeployment. This does not create any obligation for the nominated school to employ you, should a permanent job arise.

It will be a matter for the panel operator you wish to move to whether they will grant you permission to remain on their panel for a second or subsequent year if you choose to defer your Main Panel rights after securing a panel transfer.

You should also be mindful that – irrespective of securing a panel transfer –if your current school regains a permanent post, while you have deferred Main Panel rights, you will be automatically reinstated as a permanent teacher in that school.

Per the DE Redeployment FAQs:

The Department expects to have the Main Panels available after Easter. Schools will be notified through the OLCS, the Department website and the website of the various Panel Operators/management bodies that the panels have issued.

 The Board of Management / ETB has three options for filling the permanent vacancy:

• The Board of Management / ETB can select a teacher from the Main Panel, without an interview process.
• Where there is more than one teacher on the Main Panel, the Board of Management / ETB of the school with the vacancy can send a request by email inviting some or all of the teachers on the Main Panel to interview. A teacher must respond to an invitation to interview within three calendar days. The school is required to fill the post from the cohort of teachers called to interview.
• Schools have the option of using a website (educationposts.ie or staffroom.ie) as a means of engaging with the Main Redeployment Panel for the 2024/25 school year.

This can be done by the school using the website as the means to invite teachers on the relevant Main Panel to express an interest in a permanent post that falls to be filled from that Main Panel. Teachers can only respond to expressions of interest from within their own relevant panel area.

Members should refer to part 6.3 of the DE Redeployment FAQs for comprehensive guidance in respect of making appointments from the Main Panel.