I have had a similar experience to yours. i was a temporary teacher looking for a mortgage with a decent amount in savings. One thing is for sure your partners situation as sub-teacher will not be entertained. If you have been working as a temporary teacher in the same school for a couple of years, you might be aware that you will be entitled to panel rights after 3 years. If you could get the principal of the school to write a letter to say that you will be guaranteed to work there until such a time as you have panel rights and views you as a candidate for fututre permanency then EBS might entertain you. They did for me, but i was less than 6 months from having panel rights and a permanent job was about to be sanctioned.
To be honest though, unless you are confident to have a secure job stay away from buying property for the moment. If you read david macwilliams or ronan lyons they both believe there is a bit more to come off property yet. I would be an advocate of finding the price of a property by taking a months rent for a similar house, multiply it by 12 and then by 14.1. If the asking price for the house ties in with this amount then move and make a bid, if its a big way away still then leave it. Remember 2011 will be the years for repossessions so dont be in a huge hurry. Thats just my opinion. I'm sure there are others who disagree