Thousands of teachers took to the picket lines again yesterday, as Government and ASTI positions hardened further.
The Taoiseach accused the teachers of abandoning exam students while the union said that the Government had failed for months to offer anything new to solve the impasse.
The pickets were the first outside the school gates since the Labour Court issued its recommendation last week. Striking teachers expressed disappointment about the recommendation and said their case for a 30 per cent pay rise was still intact. One ASTI teacher said the only thing which had changed since Christmas was the weather.
The most remarkable element of the Labour Court recommendation is that it said teachers had a "sustainable case" for a significant pay rise. In the clamour of negative reaction to the court's findings, this pivotal point was missed by many people, not just in the ASTI.
Teachers, because they hoped to see some kind of money on the table, were furious when they saw the words Programme for Prosperity and Fairness and benchmarking in the recommendation.
Most of their leaders paid little heed to the endorsement given to their pay claim by the most important industrial relations body in the State.
After almost a year of trying to convince the public, Government, the media and other trade unions about the virtue of their claim, here was the Labour Court rowing in behind it. And while the Labour Court did not endorse the 30 per cent figure, it did not rule it out.
Although radio phone-in shows are still clogged with callers talking about the teachers' pay hopes, things have moved beyond the narrow question of whether they should get 30 per cent or not.
Government spokesmen are now keen to emphasise that Mr Ahern's difficulty is not with the ASTI seeking 30 per cent per se, but with the ASTI's tactic of looking for it through industrial action and not via the new bench marking body.
With absolutely no indication that teachers are going to get hard cash, the only other area for compromise might be getting the ASTI to accept bench marking or some alternative body they are happy with.
A leading ASTI member said yesterday the union would not go into benchmarking because it was an "unknown quantity". A fear of the unknown is not the only reason ASTI is against it.
There is a host of other reasons, not least that they have already rejected it and to walk into benchmarking now would represent - in the eyes of ASTI members - a humiliating climb-down.
The ASTI says the bench marking body - despite recent changes - will still not issue a recommendation until June 2002.
In a statement yesterday it said only a quarter of any rise the body comes up would be implemented retrospectively.
It added: "These time-scales, together with the absence of any certainty of increases it may recommend (25 per cent of nothing is nothing), mean that the benchmarking body is unacceptable as a mechanism to address the ASTI's pay claim".
The Government reply to this is to ask why it is good enough for the other teacher unions. It also points out that with a Labour Court endorsement the ASTI is in a stronger position going into the benchmarking body than a lot of other unions.
But at present the ASTI has set its face against bench marking or even anything with a whiff of benchmarking.
The Government, even if it does not concede on the wider pay issue, may have to find some way to make bench marking more appealing to the ASTI if it wants to solve this dispute.
For example, it could create a new body linked to bench marking or a specifically teaching body which would have a role in pay determination.
But this could create problems with other public sector unions and, with the PPF already in a parlous state, it may be too high a price to pay.
But all these issues may have to re-examined. While the Government does not want to show weakness, it has yet to jump its biggest hurdle - the exams.