The Minister for Education, Mr Dempsey, had no prior Cabinet approval when he said that compulsory testing for all primary school pupils will be introduced by 2007, it emerged last night.
The decision to publicise the measure is understood to have prompted surprise in Government circles because few, if any, individuals outside Mr Dempsey's immediate circle had knowledge of the development.
There was no response last night from Mr Dempsey after a number of sources confirmed that some people in Government circles regarded his timing as "peculiar".
The official Government spokeswoman said last night the matter did not go to Cabinet. "The Minister has said he will be consulting with various interest groups. The implementation date is quite a bit away."
While the Tánaiste, Ms Harney, moved last night to support Mr Dempsey, the Progressive Democrats' education spokesman, Senator John Minihan, said he was concerned that the Minister had made the announcement before holding consultations on the subject.
Ms Harney's spokesman said, "She certainly would be very supportive of initiatives in this area." This was in contrast to the tone adopted by Senator Minihan, who said he was "a little alarmed" at the Minister's decision to go public with the development.
With some senior political sources questioning the timing of the initiative, the main teaching unions said yesterday that they would oppose the measure.
"Everybody knows that there is one way to get the hackles up of teachers and that is to drop grenades when they are disporting themselves on the sunny beaches of Ireland or wherever. It's an inopportune time, certainly," said one union source.
The new State tests will be the first in primary schools since Primary Certificate was abolished in 1967. Teachers will be required to test pupils when they are in first class, sixth class and at one other time, he said.
While this means that pupils will sit their first official exams at the age of seven, Mr Dempsey rejected the view that the tests would place unnecessary pressure on young children. "It's not a high-stakes thing. It's a diagnostic measure," he said.
The Minister said there will be no specific exam day. Such tests will take place during the course of a particular term in the school year. The date for tests would be for individual schools to determine.
"There is a need to have assessment data for purposes such as decision-making, identifying progress and allocating resources," he said.
Mr Dempsey said such tests would be used to identify the extent to which literacy and numeracy standards were changing from year to year.
He also said they would determine how the performance of Irish pupils was changing in relation to trends in other countries.
The most recent literacy assessment in Irish primary schools, in 1998, found that 1.89 per cent of pupils were unable to cope with everyday demands in reading and 17.89 per cent were considered to be in need of assistance.
The 1998 Tasks for the Assessment of Reading survey showed that reading standards had remained stable in the years since the previous assessment in 1993.
Mr Dempsey said the tests would not be used to measure the performance of schools or teachers.
"If we discover over a period of time that literacy levels are not rising against a national norm, then obviously we have a problem with a programme that isn't effective rather than individual schools." While parents will be given their childrens' results, such results will not be published.
The Minister said he disagreed with the view of the general secretary of the INTO, Mr John Carr, who said on RTÉ yesterday that there was no such thing as a bad teacher.
However, he rejected the view that such results would inevitably be used to assess the performance of teachers and said the quality of teaching work was for school inspectors to determine.
Secondary schools will not be allowed to use results from the annual tests to restrict entry to the schools to those with stronger results, he said.