McCann v Minister for Education

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judgment Date: 01 January 1997
• Date: 01 January 1997
• Court: High Court

(H.C.)

McCann

and

Minister for Education

- Principle of proportionality - Application of principle where interference with legally protected right - Principle of proportionality not applicable to administrative orders, measures, decisions or regulations which do not attack legally protected rights European Union - Right of establishment - Recognition of foreign qualifications -Refusal to register teacher - Applicant an Irish citizen and unable to rely on right in Ireland - European Economic Community Treaty, 1957, Articles 6, 52.

1. S. 1 of the Intermediate Education (Ireland) Act, 1914, empowers the Minister for Education to appoint a registration council to make regulations for a register of intermediate school teachers and for prescribing the conditions to be fulfilled by teachers who wish to be placed on the register. Regulation 2 of the Regulations for the Register of Teachers, 1967, provided that an applicant for registration must have obtained one of the qualifications specified in Schedule E of the regulations or such other university diploma or qualification as the council may recognise with the approval of the minister. Since 1925, the Dáil voted annual funds to the Department of Education and an item in the estimates of expenditure of the Department of Education specified the sum to be spent on the payment of incremental salaries to secondary teachers. The Central Fund (Permanent Provisions) Act, 1965, and the annual Appropriation Acts authorise expenditure by the minister out of public funds to provide this service. In 1958, the Minister for Education made Rules for the Payment of Incremental Salary to Secondary Teachers ('the 1958 rules'). These rules related to the direct payment of incremental salaries by the Department of Education to teachers who are employed by the management authorities of secondary schools. The 1958 rules were amended from time to time, sometimes by the minister's acceptance of a report from a conciliation council established to consider the operation of the scheme for incremental salaries, and sometimes by means of a circular letter from the Department of Education. The 1958 rules provide that the management authority of secondary schools may nominate a number of recognised teachers for the payment of incremental salaries. The salary is paid directly to the teacher by the Department of Education. A recognised teacher is defined as meaning a registered teacher who complies with certain conditions. A registered...