Woods says talks on ASTI issue must be under

PPF discussions to resolve the Association of Secondary Teachers in Ireland (ASTI) dispute have to be taken with the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness, according to the Minister for Education, Dr Woods.

The Minister also announced that he would be increasing the per capita grant for secondary schools by £10 for each pupil for the next school year. He also said he would bring forward the next instalment of the per capita grant for the current school year to next month.

The Minister insisted in the House that "we cannot and must not break the PPF", as he reiterated that ASTI teachers would not be paid for the days on which they withdrew supervision at break times, because it meant that schools had to close.

He was responding to Ms Roisin Shortall, Labour's education spokeswoman, who said the Minister's threat to withhold payment was only exacerbating an already very difficult situation. She believed the issue was likely to end up in the courts.

If a court decided what was and what was not within a teacher's contract, "a huge array of activities which enrich our education system . . . will not be undertaken because of the damage that will be caused to the goodwill teachers already display through their voluntary efforts in this regard."

The Minister said he wanted to build goodwill and the bench marking review body set up to fundamentally review pay in the public sector, was "dealing with the issues in which the teachers are interested and is dealing with them as a matter of urgency".

Dr Woods said the issue of extracurricular activities could be discussed and was part of the whole package teachers wished to discuss and the benchmarking body was the means to do it.

Fine Gael's education spokesman, Mr Enda Kenny, said the president of the ASTI had said that if the Minister entered into meaningful discussions, it would examine this very carefully.

"How will the Minister get them into meaningful discussion," he asked.

"The meaningful discussions began yesterday," Dr Woods said, at the first formal meeting of the benchmarking body.

He also rejected Mr Kenny's suggestion that he did not invite the ASTI to the meeting. "I did of course invite the ASTI. It is very welcome to come to that forum but it is a matter for the ASTI as to whether it wishes to come forward. I hope it will come to that forum very soon."