She may enjoy frosty relations with the leadership, but Bernadine O'Sullivan is a hero to most ASTI delegates, writes Seán Flynn, Education Editor
A middle-aged teacher from Dublin approached this reporter at the conference yesterday. I should show you some photos of my young kids, he said, as they are the people I am fighting for. "I am fighting to stay off the breadline".
Another told me of how he takes students for charity walks over weekends and at holiday time. It helps, he says, to build decent relationships with the kids. The teacher in question - the sole breadwinner in the family - earns £800 every fortnight.
For teachers like these Bernadine O'Sullivan is a hero. Bernadine is the person most associated with the current militancy in the ASTI although - it should be said - she hates the term.
Today, she will be nominated as the ASTI candidate for the Senate elections. One of her strongest supporters, Pat Cahill - a hugely popular and respected figure within the union - was yesterday elected on the first count as a vice-president of the union.
One might imagine that ASTI members are battle-weary and demoralised after a bruising two-year pay campaign. But there was little sign of this yesterday.
In a stirring address, the current vice-president, Mr P.J. Sheehy, defended the union's decision to cut itself adrift from the ICTU and the trade union establishment. To some, he said, this represented isolation. To others it meant independence, he said, amid defiant cheering.
Bernadine O'Sullivan is a successful force in the ASTI because she has tapped into this mood within the union. She is openly sceptical of the ICTU, of Joe O'Toole and, not least, of the ASTI leadership - people like the general secretary, Charlie Lennon, who is a paid official of the union.
It was clear yesterday that she was greatly irritated by Charlie Lennon's interview in The Irish Times in which he accused a small dissident group within ASTI of fermenting division. On RTÉ radio, she openly accused the general secretary of being "extordinarily unhelpful" in relation to the ASTI pay campaign.
Later, in an interview with this reporter, she said she reiterated her opposition to words like "militant" or "hardliner". "I am a democrat, not a militant or a hardliner," she protested . "I have supported decisions which were backed by the executive committees of the union and by members in successive ballots."
She dismissed any suggestion of a so-called "democratic deficit" in the ASTI. The union, she said, was a model of representative democracy. It has 180 members of its central executive committee (CEC), representing over 50 branches.
The ASTI president, Catherine Fitzpatrick, takes a different view. She points to very low levels of attendance at branch meetings and wants new structures which would see ballots take place in schools rather than at branch level.
In his interview with The Irish Times yesterday Mr Lennon pointed to a recent day when a vote from branches and a letter from schools adopted entirely contradictory decisions.
Whatever the merits of its case - and teachers have an outstanding case for a very hefty pay increase - the ASTI now finds itself coping with several difficulties of its own making. A chasm has clearly developed between the leadership and the activists. Charlie Lennon, Catherine Fitzpatrick, 10 former presidents of the union and probably all the paid officials believe the union should change tack. But the activists are digging in, as evidenced by yesterday's refusal to enter talks on supervision.
There is also talk of a chasm between the activists and ordinary members.
Last week, over 300 people attended a meeting in Galway calling on the union to change its position. But one detected little sign of this softer mood in Bundoran yesterday.
The result of a conference motion later in the week calling on ASTI to rejoin the ICTU is already a foregone conclusion. The activists in ASTI are digging in. And they are not for turning.
Far from being demoralised, the activists sniff victory. They believe that the forthcoming report of the benchmarking pay review - with which ASTI refused to co-operate - will disappoint teachers. They believe it will be nothing like the ATM cash machine promised by Joe O'Toole.
In this scenario, the ASTI will claim they were right to stay out of the ICTU and right not to co-operate with benchmarking. Against this background, Bernadine O'Sullivan continues to reign supreme among ASTI delegates. She has fought the good fight - and they will not desert her, no matter what their own leadership says.