St Oliver's National School in Killarney has 660 pupils, including 180 of 28 different nationalities, who have help from six language support teachers because their first language is not English. But principal Rory Darcy fears that, with 10 extra children with English as an additional language (EAL) likely to be enrolled next year, the impact will be enormous.

"Under the new staffing arrangements from the Department of Education, we would lose three of those teachers.

"The EAL pupils spend an average 40 minutes a day with them this year, but that could be cut in half from September if our appeal is not successful," he said.

For the past three years, schools have been entitled to a full-time language support teacher for every 14 pupils in this category, capped at six teachers. But Education Minister Batt O'Keeffe announced in the budget last October that he was re-imposing a cap of two language support teachers per school, except for those with very high numbers of EAL students.

Finalised details sent to schools by his department last week set out that schools may keep some of these staff. However, it will be determined not just by EAL student numbers, but also by the number of years they have been receiving this support.

"We had our staff trained earlier this year to assess those needs and they finished the testing, which showed we would still need six language support teachers next year. But now that's being ignored and under the latest rules, we would lose three of them," Mr Darcy said.

"This is going to affect all 700 schools with international pupils, and not just ones with big numbers like ourselves. Because the allocations are weighted on more than numbers, schools with two language support teachers for 30 EAL children this year might not even have one in September," he said.

The circular letter sent to schools last week indicates that schools' international children that make up more than a quarter of all enrolled pupils will be entitled to appeal their allocations.

Mr O'Keeffe's spokesperson said schools can apply based on their assessment of the prospective needs of existing pupils and any new children who will be enrolled for the next school year.

"We envisage having more than 1,400 language support teachers in our schools in September 2009 and up to about 500 other teachers in part-time posts. By any standards, this is a very significant resource and the challenge will be to ensure that it is used to maximum effect," he said.

At the time of the budget, the minister said the language support limits would result in the loss of about 500 jobs.