Primary school teachers have narrowly voted to accept the proposed national pay deal, Towards 2016, following a postal ballot of the Irish National Teachers Organisation's (INTO) 27,000 members.
This means the union will now vote in favour of the deal at a special meeting of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions to discuss the deal on September 5th.
Unlike its counterparts at second and third level, the Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI) and the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI), the INTO's executive had previously recommended acceptance of the deal to its members.
The membership of the other two unions are expected to vote on the proposed deal in the coming months. But the role of other larger unions such as Siptu, whose executive recently recommended acceptance to its 200,000-plus members, and Impact and Amicus, whose leaderships have also supported the deal, are widely seen as pivotal in deciding whether it is ratified by ICTU's overall membership.
According to John Carr, general secretary of the INTO, the margin of support for the deal, with 55 per cent in favour and 45 per cent against, represented a "clear decision" by primary teachers to accept the agreement.
But the size of the vote for rejection reflected very real concerns about rising inflation, Mr Carr said.
"Teachers have also expressed concerns that the details in relation to productivity have not been spelt out in detail," he said.
Teachers were similarly concerned about changes affecting their conditions of employment that were being introduced outside the terms of agreements.
The agreement provides for salary increases of 10 per cent over 27 months and further modernisation of the education system. Among the areas to be addressed are changes in teacher redeployment and promotion, school development planning, how teachers experiencing professional difficulties are dealt with.