The Government is facing further pay demands from secondary teachers with a second union preparing to submit a claim for a salary increase of up to 40 per cent to the new pay review body.
The Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI) is close to completing its submission to the body containing a claim for "not less than 20 per cent" plus the 19.2 per cent included under the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness.
The move comes as the other second-level union, ASTI, begins the second day of its action today in pursuit of a 30 per cent rise. Its 16,000 members will not be providing supervision in more than 600 schools today and classes in most will be cancelled. Without teachers to supervise, schools say they cannot fulfil health and safety requirements.
The president of the TUI, Mr John Mac Gabhann, said it was agreed this week the pay review body could deal with past productivity conceded by teachers which bolstered its claim.
"We are confident that when we put our case to the body it will be very convincing," he said. Some Government sources had speculated that 5 per cent could be awarded, but Mr Mac Gabhann said this was "absurdly small". Unlike the TUI, ASTI has refused to take part in the review body. Yesterday it said an invitation from the Minister for Education, Dr Woods, to its first meeting was "misleading". It said the meeting only involved the Irish Congress of Trade Unions which it left earlier this year. The Department declined to comment on the dispute.
In a related development, the Government is understood to be planning to include funds toward supervision in the Budget which would allow schools to bring in outsiders as supervisors. School managers requested this before the ASTI dispute began.
While classes in most schools will be cancelled today, there were signs last night a small number of Dublin schools, in Castleknock, Cabra and Clonsilla, were planning to take pupils. The principal of St Declan's College, Cabra, Mr Jack Cleary, told The Irish Times that pupils who turned up would be taught.
"We will have no teachers to supervise during our early and main breaks, so pupils will have to be off the premises then, but otherwise pupils can be taught in their classrooms."
A spokeswoman for Hartstown Community School said pupils would have to leave the school during break time when supervision would be absent.