American seeking Irish work permit/residency etc

Denalihighway

Hello all,

I'm looking for some pointers to help an American girl relocate to Ireland.
So the responses (hopefully) can be as on-the-point as possible, I'll give a brief synopsis.

- She is a highly qualified primary school teacher with lots of previous experience in childcare etc.
- She currently works at an exclusive American school in the Netherlands and has residency there at the moment.
- She is hoping to come here (Dublin) and work from September 2008. We have made tentative investigations and she has been liaising with various employers here which has been quite fruitful but nothing concrete. One of the difficulties is that she needs to confirm her intention to go/stay to her current employer in Feb (not strictly enforcable I think but preferable for the school) but the majority of the schools would not be hiring here til well after that so a bit of a leap of faith may be involved.

What we need is some pointers on how we can maximise her chances of finding work in her area. Its possible that she may not find an ideal position but may go into sub-teaching for a while - for which there is demand but obviously the big issue here will be her eligibility for work. Teaching as far as I know is not one of those 'critical demand areas' (or whatever they call it) where work permits are freely available for those wishing to fill a position and relocate etc.

Can anyone share their experiences or shed light of processes/procedures involved or point us in the direction of people/resources that may help? The govt websites usually paint the picture pretty bleakly but where there's a will there's usually a few options.

Sorry for the long post! And thanks in advance good folks

Paulw

As far as I know, for teaching, she has to be accepted by the Dept of Education first, before any individual school can employ her.

Start there. Contact the Dept of Education and see how they can help.

Brendan552004

Unless she knows Irish (Gaeilge) I do not think she can be a primary teacher.

Denalihighway

thanks lads - yeah I realise the above alright, just wondering if anyone has first hand experiences to be honest.

The Irish thing is a problem obviously but you can get around it quite easily by targetting private schools, non-catholic schools, remedial work etc etc. As I say...where there's a will...

Victor

Brendan552004 wrote: »

Unless she knows Irish (Gaeilge) I do not think she can be a primary teacher.

I understand foreign teachers are allowed 5 years to come up to the required standard in Irish. In the meantime, the teacher swops with another teacher for Irish classes. Of course, its rather easy for an adult to surpass most 5 year olds at Irish.

Denalihighway

yeah i'd heard something about that actually. An irish guy in the Netherlands kindly offered some beginners lessons too which is cool

but i'm wondering how this would even come to pass since a catholic school or any school with irish in the curriculum would always hire an irish speaker to avoid the hassle of swapping etc. Unless the demand for teachers is that great