Teachers at two primary schools in north inner-city Dublin have voted to take industrial action on foot of this year's teacher cutbacks. Dublin's Central Model Infants National School and Plas Mhuire Boys' National School, along with a number of other primary schools around the State, were informed by the Department of Education and Science in June that their teaching staff was to be cut. Two schools in Co Mayo have also voted to take industrial action.

According to the INTO, a total of 393 teachers are due to be put on the panel system. These cuts are based on the enrolement figures for September 30th last year, which are submitted to the Department by each school.

The issue of teacher cutbacks will be discussed at an INTO executive meeting on Friday, October 2nd, and a decision made on what action should be taken.

In Dublin, Finian McGrath, principal of Plas Mhuire Place Boys' National School, Dorset Street, met officials from the Department during the summer to plead his case. "It's a numbers game," he says, with disgust. "They're not taking into consideration what it's like to work in the inner city with children who are at risk.

"We feel angry that there's so much money in the country but that those resources are not targeted at the people who are so needy. What about the people at the bottom of the pile? It's a justice point of view . . . there's great anger and frustration among the staff." The school is one of the 33 poorest schools in the State as assessed by the Combat Poverty Agency, says McGrath. Last year it was benefitting from extra resources, including an extra teacher, through the Breaking the Cycle scheme, which was set up to reduce the pupil teacher ratio (PTR) in 33 targeted schools.

However, the school's enrolment figure for September 1997 was "down by four pupils" and it failed to qualify for an extra teacher for this year. Consequently his staff is down by one teacher.

"But I know myself we pick up between six and eight kids through the school year," he argues.

The Department says that schools where teaching staff have been cut are losing a teacher in the context of the overall enrolment of the school and not from their Breaking the Cycle teacher arrangements.

"The concessionary teacher arrangements and pupil teacher ratios which were announced for the Breaking the Cycle pilot project remain fully in place in participating schools," the Minister, Micheal Martin, said during the summer."Breaking the Cycle has never involved simply handing out teaching posts - it establises a PTR and allocates the staff required to meet it."

Breaking the Cycle aims to reduce the PTR in junior classes. Father John Wall, chairman of St Laurence O'Toole Junior and Senior Girls' School, says that "this still means that third and fourth class have to be educated together. Breaking the Cycle is marvellous, providing that there's nothing fighting against it. We need to have a teacher per class. At the moment they have two classes being taught by the one teacher, and we are in Sherriff Street."

Last year with the extra teacher and the extra money, Plas Mhuire National School was able to "try out different things", says McGrath. "Children were made to feel important. Extra money meant we could pay people to come in."

For example, the school set up drama classes, extra remedial English classes, art therapy, tin whistle classes, an after school children's club, outings to sporting fixtures, English classes for the children of refugee families and trips linked directly to nature, geography and the arts.

Not having that extra teacher this year, he says, means the Department has "taken away a part of the package and that's the damaging part".

The school has some children "whose parents are addicts. There will be some days they are left to school, some days when they are not collected. When that happens you put them in your car and find them a nanny. A lot of children come to school hungry.

"We have some children who get themselves up every morning and feed themselves. This is what happens. They are great children. These are kids from dysfunctional families . . . we are glad to see them come to school."

Principals have been "very upbeat about the Breaking the Cycle initiative and feel it is successful", according to Brian Tubbert, co-ordinator of the Dublin Inner City Primary Schools' Initiative, which links 10 schools and aims at pooling resources, sharing skills and developing networks and support between them. With these cutbacks, they feel that "their flexibility is reduced considerably and they have to double up classes."

Principals are also worried that, since substitute teachers are in short supply, substitutes are less inclined to go to "the tougher schools".

Tony Gregory, the Dublin Central TD, raised the issue in the Dail at the start of the summer. He explains that when "numbers fall in any one year, the school concerned can lose a teacher and that leads to extraordinary anomalies. Those schools make great efforts to build up a dedicated teacher-pupil relationship, yet the Department, which should be encouraging such a relationship, does not appear to care."

Schools such as the Central Model Infants' School in Marlborough Street and St Laurence O'Toole Senior Girls' School are officially regarded by the Department as schools that provide for children who are among the most disadvantaged in the State. The Central Model Infants School has now lost "a committed teacher and a valued member of staff this year," Gregory told the Dail.

He has called on the Government to ensure that no school in a socially disadvantaged area is deprived of an extra teacher. "We were very angry that they took the teacher away from us," says McGrath. "We'll get four or five extra boys in a few weeks time. It's a numbers game. They are not taking into account what it's like to work in the inner city or with children at risk."

McGrath is a working principal who has a teaching staff of six. Last year the school benefitted from the addition of one extra teacher.

At Plas Mhuire Boys' National School, about 60 per cent of children's parents are unemployed, while the remaining 40 per cent are in the "very low-paid" bracket. Senator Joe O'Toole, general secretary of the INTO, sees the cutbacks as "a demoralising blow" to the Breaking the Cycle initiative. "It has turned it on its head. It shows an awful lack of understanding by the Government. It seems ridiculous to us that we are pulling back resources when they need it more than ever.

"We believe that the inner city schools are being ignored. It means we are dropping these kids and they will become the flotsam and jetsam of society because we are not prepared to invest in them." Although teaching cuts take place every year following an agreement between the Department and the INTO, "it's never been as savage as this", says O'Toole.