The four Protestant schools which have begun legal action against the Department of Education say they were "not consulted" on the disputed redeployment deal.
The schools in question, including Wesley College in Ballinteer and St Andrew's in Booterstown, have refused to accept teachers from Dublin schools that closed in the past year.
The Protestant schools say the new deal on redeployment obliging them to accept these teachers is unlawful and would undermine their special ethos. But critics of their stance accuse them of an elitist and discriminatory approach.
The department says it will vigorously contest the legal action taken by the schools.
The thrust of the department's case is that the Protestant schools signed up to the redeployment deal during talks at the Teacher Conciliation Council in May. These talks - between the department, school managers and teachers unions - agreed on a series of new "efficiency measures" across the education sector. These were conceded in return for pay awards under the Towards 2016 national pay deal.
The Protestant schools were represented at the meeting by the Joint Managerial Body/Associa-tion of Management of Catholic Secondary Schools (JMB/ AMCSS), the group which negotiates on behalf of most Catholic and Protestant second-level schools. But the Protestant schools say their own representative body - the Irish Schoolheads Association (ISA) - had signalled it would not sign up to the redeployment deal even before negotiations began. The ISA does not enjoy negotiating rights with the department.
Last night Canon John McCullagh, a spokesman for the four schools, said they were "not a party" to the redeployment deal worked out by the AMCSS.
Yesterday, Ferdia Kelly, general secretary JMB/AMCSS, said the AMCSS council reluctantly accepted the redeployment scheme for surplus teachers as a consequence of school closures last May. "The council had a number of serious reservations in relation to the proposed scheme but felt on balance that it was necessary to accept the scheme in order to provide an opportunity for the teachers in the three Catholic Voluntary Secondary Schools due to close this summer to continue their professional careers.
"AMCSS shares with the Irish Schoolheads Association (the Association of Principals and Managers of Protestant Schools) concerns around the impact of a redeployment scheme on
a) the right of an employer ie the board of management to select through an open transparent recruitment process the most suitable applicant to fill a vacancy on the teaching staff of a school.
b) the right of a denominational school to promote its ethos and culture.
"The AMCSS and the ISA continue to operate very effectively as the Joint Managerial Body on a whole range of issues pertinent to the Voluntary Secondary sector."
A question of ethos - why four Protestant schools are going to court: Education Today: page 13
