Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 10 February 2026
558. Deputy Aisling Dempsey asked the Minister for Education and Youth if she will remove the obligation on principals of schools with under 60 pupils to teach, given the increased administration and operational duties on them; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [9277/26]
View answerThe key factor for determining the level of staffing resources provided at individual school level is the staffing schedule for the relevant school year and pupil enrolments on the previous 30 September. Similarly, the allocation of an administrative principal to a school is generally enrolment based. The current thresholds for administrative principal is 169, 136 and 113 pupils in ordinary, DEIS 2 and DEIS 1 schools respectively. Where a school has two or more special classes, an administrative principal is allocated regardless of enrolment.
All schools with a teaching principal have a minimum of 37 Principal Release Days, that is, one administrative day per week. Schools with one special class have four additional release days, a total of 41 in the school year. Schools may employ a substitute teacher for the day to facilitate the principal’s release day. Alternatively, schools may cluster their release days with other schools in order to create a full-time fixed-term post, or combine their release days with Special Education Teaching (SET) hours with principal release days in order to create a full-time post. The inclusion of principal release days in cluster posts allows for consistency in the teaching cover provided to schools.
Restoration of middle management positions were prioritised in recent Budgets with 500 additional Assistant Principal (AP) II posts allocated to primary schools in the 2024/25 school year. For the 2025/26 school year, the equivalent of 500 AP II posts is being distributed as 110 AP I and 251 AP II for the purposes of fully restoring all posts of responsibility in primary schools. In addition, the second teacher in two-teacher schools has Deputy Principal status as opposed to holding an AP II post.
