Principals and deputy principals of secondary schools will never again undertake work outside their normal duties without written and irrevocable guarantees, according to the president of the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals, Mr Michael McCann.
The manner in which principals and deputy principals were treated by the Department of Education, school managements and their unions had been "downright insulting", he said.
He accused the Minister for Education and Science, Mr Dempsey, of a fundamental breach of trust in telling principals and deputy principals that the annual allowance for their duties would compensate them for the exceptional hardship they endured during the three-year dispute over substitution and supervision.
The association is lobbying for compensation for principals and deputy principals for their hundreds of hours of additional work during the dispute.
Principals and deputy principals were treated as pawns in the dispute over supervision and substitution, Mr McCann said. They had acted honourably at great personal cost.
While the Government had paid €42 million to outside supervisors, the principals and deputy principals who did additional work got "the infamous sum" of €5,000 per school, which he described as derisory. "Delegates spoke of having been used by the ASTI and abandoned by the joint managerial body," he said.
"Principals saw outside supervisors getting as much as €25,000 per year each while principals themselves got as little as €1,400 each. Contrary to what some people seem to believe, the management bodies do not, and in my view cannot, represent principals, much less deputy principals."
Delegates passed an emergency motion that the association "pursue an adequate payment for principals and deputy principals in relation to contingency arrangements for supervision and substitution."