Fine Gael has called on the Minister for Education to broker a deal with ASTI rather than face the "chaos in the corridors" they claim will ensue from his contingency plan.
Dr Michael Woods gave an "unqualified guarantee" yesterday that schools would not be closed on March 4th when the ASTI members withdraw supervision and substitute cover in their long-running pay dispute. They have rejected the Government’s offer of €34 per hour.
Fine Gael’s spokesman on education, Mr Michael Creed TD, claimed today the Minister’s promise could not be kept, despite his assurances of Government support. It has been estimated that up to 2,000 replacement teachers may have to be recruited at the 530 schools affected to prevent them from closing.
Mr Creed warned that many schools will be forced to close because of difficulty in securing suitable replacements, and those that managed to remain open still faced the risk of "chaos in the corridors".
"Asking the schools to solve the Minister's problems is not the way to deal with this issue," said Mr Creed. "Once again students, and in particular those in examination classes will be the big losers."
He was echoing the comments last night by the general secretary of the Joint Managerial Body, Mr George O'Callaghan, who also doubted the Government’s ability to support the guarantee.
"We will work as hard as possible with the Department on this, but considering the scale of the task and the short timeframe, I do not think anyone can give a guarantee".
