Elaine Bonner trained as a primary teacher at Stranmillis College in Belfast for four years. Then she received a honours B.Ed degree from Queen's University. She taught for 10 years in Northern Ireland before moving to Scoil Eoin Baiste in Carrigart, Co Donegal, three years ago.

Yet after 13 years' experience of teaching, she earns less than other teachers in the school with the same - or less - experience under their belts and can never hope to earn more unless she passes a tough Irish-language test, the Scrudu Cailiochta sa Ghaeilge, which is a requirement for all national teachers trained outside this State.

Over the last two years, Bonner has attended various night classes in an effort to learn the language. "I really enjoyed the language and find that with the many excellent resources available today, I can deliver the required curriculum to the children (junior and senior infants) in my care."

But she points out somewhat indignantly: "This year anyone with a degree can teach in a primary school, even though they have no training or experience in education, and be paid more than me! At the moment there is a huge shortage of primary teachers. Often, substitutes with little or no training are teaching our children, while trained teachers with many years experience such as myself are being discouraged from applying for posts because of the financial hardship.

"It's very frustrating," she says. "It makes you feel exploited. Even in our small branch of 27 INTO members, there are three others in the same position as myself," she says. "I heard over the phone in late December from our union rep that a meeting had been held with the Department and that something positive was going to happen . . . As yet I have heard nothing."

But there now is hope that the barriers which have prevented primary teachers from Northern Ireland from teaching in the Republic are about to be lifted. udu Cailiochta sa Ghaeilge (SCG); however, there were subsequent and significant losses in pay cuts because of this missing qualification.

There were clear signals from Thursday's meeting between the Minister for Education, Michael Woods, and his counterpart in the North, Martin McGuinness, that teachers' calls for this exam requirement to be changed are now going to be listened to.

In line with an official policy to promote teacher mobility, it is now expected that this tough exam will become "impossible to fail", according to one official source. Official sources also indicated that in the future there will be financial support for people who must go and study in the Gaeltacht. To date, the Department of Education and Science has insisted on "teacher competence in Irish", and many teachers like Bonner have been unable to earn the full national teachers' salary because they do not have the required standard in Irish. The starting salary for primary teachers who have trained in the Republic is £15,334 a year; teachers starting without the Irish-language requirement get £13,905.

Teachers who train as national teachers in the Republic take Irish in their primary degree and are required to pass just one section of the SCG. Teachers like Bonner who trained in other member states of the EU but don't have the appropriate Irish language qualification are granted a period of provisional recognition to teach in mainstream classes in national schools, during which they are expected to study to achieve the required standard and take the two parts of the SCG.

This provision was laid down, according to Department of Education guidelines, because "teachers in national schools are generalists rather than subject specialists and must be qualified to teach the range of primary-school subjects to children aged four to 12 years . . . applicants must satisfy the Department of Education and Science that they are competent to teach the Irish language and to teach the range of primary-school curricular subjects through the medium of Irish."

To do this, they have to pass the written, aural and oral parts of the SCG. They also have to provide certification that they have resided in the Gaeltacht while attending a recognised three-week Irish language course or an equivalent combination of one- and two-week courses.

Following a debate on this issue at the INTO's annual congress last year, many teachers spoke out at the unfairness of this two-tier system. They also said that the standard of Irish needed for the SCG is unreasonably high and that the three-year period of time given to attain it is too short.