The three powerful teachers' unions have their annual meetings immediately after Easter, and the Minister for Education, as usual, will visit them all. But new boy Michael Woods will be somewhat upstaged at the INTO in Killarney where the guest speaker will be none other than his suspended counterpart from the North, Martin McGuinness. After years of refusals by Unionist ministers, initial delight that for the first time ever two concurrent Irish education ministers would attend has been replaced by debate as to whether he should be introduced as former Minister, Minister Designate or indeed Minister.
Earlier this year, McGuinness told the Northern INTO conference in Derry that days before the Assembly was adjourned in February, frantic efforts were being made to find an acceptable compromise. He was waiting with Gerry Adams in a corridor in Government Buildings, to meet Bertie Ahern, amid great activity as the Programme for Prosperity and Partnership was being finalised. Then INTO president, Senator Joe O'Toole, walked out of the Taoiseach's office. "While we were waiting," McGuinness told the delegates, "O'Toole negotiated an extra 1,000 primary teachers." O'Toole commented that like Thomas Davis, it was the INTO's role to educate people "that they might be free".