The Minister for Education, Mr Martin, said yesterday he was "extremely shocked and deeply concerned" over a serious assault on a teacher in a Co Waterford primary school classroom.
The assault at the Brother Edmund Rice school in Tramore was allegedly carried out by the teenage brother of a 12-year-old pupil at the school. The pupil had been disciplined for alleged bullying in the playground.
The teacher was knocked to the floor in front of his fifth-class pupils and suffered a broken nose in the attack, which took place in mid-January. He has not yet returned to work.
A file on the case is expected to be sent i and is expected to be sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions soon.
Mr Martin, speaking in Limerick, said teachers were now more vulnerable to this type of conduct. "It is a regrettable situation and reflects the way modern society is going today. The board of the school concerned has been advised of their obligations in this matter and are taking the necessary steps," he added.
However, the general secretary of the Irish National Teachers' Organisation, Senator Joe O'Toole, criticised the Department of Education for leaving it to the school's board to find a new school for the pupil whose brother was the alleged assailant.
The boy has been suspended from school and teachers are unwilling to allow him to return, maintaining that this would not be in their own interests or that of other pupils.
The school is attempting to have the boy placed elsewhere, but it is understood that the only other primary school in the immediate area is unable to accommodate any additional pupils.
A Department spokesman said that before a primary school removes a pupil from its register, it was required to find a place from him elsewhere. But if the school failed to do so in this case, the Department would step in to ensure he was granted his constitutional right to an education.
Senator O'Toole said that problems such as this one would not be solved simply by "moving it on". Proper structures needed to be put in place to cater for seriously disruptive pupils.
He also criticised the fact that boards of management did not have the power to insist that parents of difficult pupils attend their school for discussions, nor could they insist on psychological assessments being carried out. Schools should also have the authority to insist in certain cases that parents and pupils go for counselling.
A psychological assessment is to be carried out on the boy in the Co Waterford case, according to the Department spokesman.
Primary schools were circulated by the Department with a document in September on the procedures to be followed in cases of assault on teachers.