A chara, – In your editorial (April 17th) you claim that the ASTI made a "decision to breach the terms" of the Lansdowne Road Agreement. This is incorrect. In October 2015, ASTI members voted, by a margin of three to one, to reject the Lansdowne Road Agreement, a decision it has reaffirmed several times since. It is therefore not possible for it to have breached the terms of an agreement that it did not sign up to in the first place.
The ASTI has, however, fulfilled all of its obligations under the previous Haddington Road Agreement and to the best of my knowledge has never broken any agreement with the Government.This is despite the fact that the current Government has broken and reneged on a host of agreements and understandings in an effort to force and intimidate the ASTI into accepting the compromised Lansdowne Road.
For the last four years (and for many decades in the past) ASTI teachers have carried out supervision and substitution work for free on the clear understanding that on the completion of the Haddington Road Agreement some level of payment for this work would be restored. This has not occurred, despite the fact that a partial restoration was clearly stipulated under the terms of Haddington Road.
You also state that “under the terms of the Lansdowne Road Agreement, the INTO and the TUI have secured increases for new entrants” into the teaching profession. The Lansdowne Road Agreement was silent on this issue and did not propose in any way to achieve equal pay for equal work. ASTI industrial action was central in bringing this issue to the fore.
The issue of lower-paid teachers is rightly on top of the agenda at all of the teacher union conferences this week. Working together, there is every reason to believe that they should achieve a successful outcome on this issue.– Is mise,
KEVIN P McCARTHY,
Killarney, Co Kerry.