The Government will not dispute the Labour Court finding that ASTI members have a sustainable case for a pay increase, the Minister for Education, Mr Woods, has said.
The Labour Court said the pay increase should be processed through benchmarking and Mr Woods confirmed that the payment of 25 per cent of any award payable will be made on receipt of the Public Service Benchmarking Report, which is due in June next year.
Addressing some 500 delegates at the ASTI's annual convention in Galway, the Minister said social partnership was the key to economic growth and prosperity and sustained progress in education.
He said the ASTI pay dispute and the effect it has had on teachers, students, and parents was "one of the most critical issues for education in Ireland".
Mr Woods reiterated that teaching was a noble and skilled profession. "I have also made it clear that teachers must be paid appropriately," he said.
He added that investment in education must ensure that teachers' pay, working conditions, in-career development and career opportunities were sufficient to motivate them and to attract high-calibre graduates.
The Minister said he felt teachers should now sit back "calmly" and consider the Labour Court recommendation. He added: "I think it would be a pity now to spoil that situation. They put a lot of hard work into getting to this point.
"The money is there. I believe that we will have a much better and better paid group of teachers throughout the country as a whole at the end of this dispute," he said.
The outgoing president of the ASTI, Mr Don McCluskey, received a standing ovation when he referred to the past year as one of great effort and trauma.
The members' campaign for a pay rise had been long, arduous and sometimes bitter but they were now at a crossroads, he said.
He said members had a "momentous" decision to make in their ballot. "Whatever the decision they take, the campaign continues and will not end until we achieve our aim. The only decision to be made is the means we adopt to achieve this aim," he said.
If members voted for further industrial action, there should be a further ballot to decide what form it should take, he said.
Mr McCluskey said it was "a matter of great regret to me that intemperate and unacceptable language used by a representative of parents" had damaged parent-teacher relations during the dispute.
He believed it would be extremely difficult to rebuild a harmonious relationship, but any efforts to this end would have to be two-way.
He added that while parents often called on teachers to be accountable, he believed parents themselves should now be called to account when a minority of children disrupt classes.
Mr McCluskey also called for unity among teachers of all unions, saying the ASTI, INTO and TUI shared the goal of a substantial salary increase.
"If the events of the last 16 months illustrate anything it is the truth of the old adage `united we stand, divided we fall'. If there was a case in the past for one united teachers' union, it is now an unanswerable one."