A strong opponent of benchmarking, who wants the amount of time teachers spend in the classroom reduced, has been elected to a senior position in the Teachers' Union of Ireland (TUI).
Mr Paddy Healy, who becomes vice-president of the union in April, was elected at the weekend by 4,301 votes to 2,502 for his opponent, Mr Fergal McCarthy.
Mr Healy is a trenchant opponent of the Government's education policies and says he is deeply concerned about the growing influence of the market economy in education. He is the brother of Mr Seamus Healy, the Independent Socialist TD for South Tipperary.
In recent years he has also been in conflict with the leadership of the TUI over its pay campaign. He has described its decision to cancel a special congress on pay last year as "arrogant". He has criticised the ICTU and its position on public sector pensions.
Yesterday Mr Healy said benchmarking - the system the Government hopes will put an end to strife in the education sector - was totally unsuitable for teachers.
He told The Irish Times that unless the benchmarking body delivered a pay increase of about 34 per cent there were likely to be major ramifications among teachers in all three unions.
He said pay awards by the body would have to be put to a ballot and "if rejected our claims will be pursued by traditional means".
Mr Healy, a lecturer in DIT Kevin Street, declined to comment on the current conflict between the Government and the ASTI, but said he would be working for a joint approach with the INTO and ASTI on pay in future.
Mr Healy is likely to be vice-president of the union for two years. After that he can go forward for election for president. He said yesterday he would strongly consider this, if members wanted him.
Mr Healy said there were incredibly levels of stress on teachers nowadays and he would be working on ways to improve this situation. A reduction in "class contact hours" was a good way to do this.
"There is a widespread demand among members that the problem of ever-increasing workload be tackled, so that teachers can continue to provide a highly professional service.
"The multiplicity of additional tasks must be met by a reduction in class-contact hours for the classroom teacher. This must be underpinned by an improvement in the pupil-teacher ratio," he said.
Mr Healy said indiscipline in schools was also becoming a major problem and teachers were not being backed up in their work.
He has demanded a new "teachers' charter" in schools which would guarantee teachers certain rights during their work.
On pensions, Mr Healy said the Government was offering to pay a lump-sum (equal to 1 per cent of salary due on April 1st) under the PPF in April. But he said it would be non-pensionable and "off the salary scale".
"Members are strongly opposed to this approach which would undermine salaries and pensions across the public service. As one union alone cannot reverse this trend, I am committed to seeking support across the public service to oppose non-pensionable payments off salary scale."
He said the ICTU had adopted in recent weeks a negotiating position involving major changes to the pension arrangements of existing teachers.
"There is widespread support for my contention that ICTU has no authority to agree changes to the basis on which our members' pension increases are assessed and funded without the prior agreement of TUI members in a ballot," he said.