A dispute broke out last night between the Minister for Education and Science, Mr Dempsey, and the Irish National Teachers' Organisation (INTO) after Mr Dempsey refused to apologise for his decision to send inspectors into schools to make sure they were open on the 23rd of December last.
This followed a threat by the Minister not to pay the proposed 10 per cent benchmarking awards to those teachers who failed to report for work on that day.These awards are due to be paid next week.
The Minister yesterday said a number of schools had indicated they were not going to abide by an agreement on the common school year. As such, he said, it was only right that he should check the agreement was being complied with.
Earlier a statement by the Irish National Teachers Organisation (INTO) had claimed that primary teachers returning to work yesterday after the Christmas break would have a "bad taste in their mouths" following the row.
Likening the Minister's decision to send in inspectors to a "hit-squad type operation, " the INTO said the Minister had adversely affected the standing of inspectors among the educational community.
However, the Minister yesterday called on the INTO to withdraw its statement, as he had never employed some of the language it claimed he had used.
"I didn't use the language that the INTO premised their statement on," he said. "Where I had the opportunity, I have done nothing other than praise the commitment, the dedication, the professionalism of the teaching profession.
"But like every other profession, politics included, it's not a profession of saints. There are those who don't do their job right - a very small minority - and where I find that's happening, I have a duty and an obligation to the children and to the students in the country to say that, and to try and rectify that."
Last night, however, a spokesman for the INTO said while it remained critical of the Minister's decision to send in the inspectors, it had not demanded an apology from him.
Meanwhile, a dispute over parent-teacher meetings is expected to be resolved today.
The Department of Education had threatened to hold off on the benchmarking pay increase unless the teaching unions agreed to hold meetings at times which are more convenient for parents.
Sources say a compromise deal is likely to be worked out at a meeting between Department officials, unions and management bodies later today.