Daithi Ryder, as "deputy principal" in a two-teacher school in Mayo, gave an exhausting listing of his duties to last week's INTO conference - as a result of his and several other second teachers' stories, the assembly of over 800 in Galway to demand that the INTO pursue a claim for "a responsibility allowance" for the second teacher in two-teacher schools. One in four of 3,192 primary schools are two-teacher schools.

Ryder was the only speaker during the week-long conference who won such sustained applause for his funny and effective speech.

His jobs as second teacher, he said, include co-ordinating the roll books, teaching music, teaching drama, helping the principal to sift through the rainforest of mail that arrives, collecting milk and photography monies, helping prepare for children for the sacraments and the annual Mass and acting as medical and safety officer.

His 74.5 hours of yard duty this year has included "chasing stray dogs and cleaning up what lost heiffers left to fertilise the rose garden". And - "I have recently become computer teacher to the children, the principal and me". He also helps in fund-raising activities such as the annual school social, the table quiz and the raffles.

"But I don't chase mice or unblock toilets," he told them emphatically. "How do I do it? Look at my (receding) hair!" He went on to list a further raft of jobs that he must do as the teacher next-in-line to the principal.

Marguerite Fleming, of the union's Midleton branch in Co Cork, said the deputy principal's duties are to assist the principal in the day-to-day running of the school and to deputise in his or her absence. "Now, the second teacher is required to serve on the IT committee, the RSE policy committee and on the board of management.

"There are 685 two-teacher schools in the country and with extra appointments will make 87 more."

Diarmaid Mac Eochaidh, also from the Midleton branch, said "the second teacher in two-teacher schools takes on voluntarily many of the tasks for which teachers in larger schools are paid responsibility allowances.

"Our two-teacher schools are indeed in a unique situation. They are a focal point of the communities they serve, very often the only expression of identity in a locality," he said. Already the work in most cases is being carried out in an informal and unstructured way and is wholly dependent on the goodwill of the second teacher."

But, he said, this has got to change. "The day of the feather in the cap and the pat on the head are long gone."