Four Protestant schools are claiming in the High Court that a teachers' redeployment scheme interferes with their autonomy relating to the maintenance of denominational education.
The four Dublin private secondary schools - St Andrew's, Booterstown; Rathdown Girls School, Glenageary; Wesley College, Ballinteer, and St Patrick's Grammar, Christchurch - are seeking orders that the Minister for Education and Science has breached their constitutional rights.
They also want the court to stop the Minister's redeployment scheme resulting from the closure of a number of secondary schools around Dublin due to declining populations.
The schools say their refusal to take part in the scheme has left them with financial problems in that they must pay from their own pockets the salaries of any new teachers they employ.
St Patrick's Grammar says it now has to temporarily fund 1.5 out of 7.16 classroom teaching posts for which it qualifies; St Andrew's and Rathdown say they face "the imminent prospect" of having to let go recently recruited teachers; while Wesley says it has not recruited any additional teachers because of uncertainty created by this scheme.
In seeking an order restraining operation of the scheme, the schools say their reputations are likely to be damaged if teachers are withdrawn or not available.
They have accused the Minister of wrongfully withholding funding for salaries when all teachers available to be transferred under the redeployment scheme have already been allocated to other schools.
The scheme was introduced in May of this year without consultation or agreement with the applicant schools, it is claimed.
Under the scheme, a director of redeployment was appointed who had to be satisfied, before transferring a teacher, that they would agree to respect the ethos of the school involved.
The schools claim that the manner in which the scheme operates deprives them of a key element of the right of denominational schools to organise their affairs autonomously, specifically the right to choose suitable teachers.
At no time had they accepted the scheme.
The schools are seeking an order from the High Court to force the Minister to immediately commence payment of salaries to teachers appointed by the schools and to reimburse them for salaries paid so far.
They are also seeking damages and costs of their action which was mentioned briefly yesterday before Mr Justice Frank Clarke in the High Court. The court heard the Minister has not yet filed a defence and the judge adjourned the case to January 28th.