Further industrial action measures are proposed

There's more strike action to come in primary schools, this time in the Connaught-Ulster region, on November 18th.

A spokeswoman for the INTO said the continued action is about the implementation of the report of the review group on the role of primary school principals. The Minister for Education and Science has pointed out, repeatedly, that this report has not yet been published. He said, in the Dail last Friday that the strike was unnecessary and that the report would be formally launched this week.

A working group had been established last year to examine the "rights, roles, duties and responsibilities of principals, both administrative and teaching, in primary schools . . . It was clear to all concerned that there would not be movement before the autumn yet people felt obliged to go on strike. That was not necessary or justified," the Minister said.

The INTO has three key demands: time release for teaching principals; caretaking and secretarial supports; and a reduction of two in the number of teachers required for a school to have an administrative rather than a teaching principal. This last demand would mean a school would only need six teachers to have an administrative principal.

Meanwhile, a Department of Education spokesman hit back at INTO principals who were reported in yesterday's Irish Times as asking for "a share in this country's new-found wealth and profits".

The principal was speaking at the INTO's Biennial Principals' Consultative Conference, which was held in Westport, Co Mayo, on Friday and Saturday. Another principal said "we are the day-to-day managers of schools and we want manager's wages".

Individual principals demanded a minimum basic salary increased for principals of 20 per cent and a 50 per cent increase in allowances. Demands were also made for travelling expenses of 70p a mile, to cover school-related activities.

The spokesman for the Department of Education noted that one of the people in the front line of the Cork strike, last week, said in a television interview that the dispute was not about pay but about services for young people. "Obviously there is a breakdown in communications in the union as to what the dispute is about. Once again, it is the children who are affected," he said.

A spokeswoman for the INTO told E&L that the strike action was clearly about the three key demands but there was growing disquiet among principals about their pay and conditions. The issues were becoming somewhat blurred and difficult to differentiate, she added.