Second-level teachers will consider strike action unless current legislation forcing schools to readmit suspended or expelled students is changed to take into account the rights of teachers and other students, a major conference on discipline in the classroom will hear later today.
The conference, hosted by the Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI), will also be told by a leading law expert that while the existing legislation contains many rights for students, there seem to be few rights for teachers.
Mr Paddy Healy, president of the TUI, told The Irish Times his union intends to address the "imbalance" in the legislation by treating school discipline as an industrial relations issue.
It will also be encouraging members to ensure their schools have a code of discipline in place, enforced by management boards.
He stressed that provision should be made for consistently undisciplined children to be excluded from the classroom.
The union was "hopeful and confident" that the Minister for Education and Science, Ms Hanafin, intended to tackle the issue, Mr Healy said.
But he acknowledged that if legislative change was not introduced "as a matter of urgency", the TUI's new approach could eventually lead to a withdrawal of labour. This would follow a ballot of members and be a "last resort."
While such action would generally be limited to the school in question, he could not rule out escalation if the situation was not addressed.
Mr Healy said his union was not prepared to go "down the road of yet another report on the creaking shelf of the Department and nothing happening. We want a very urgent investigation and re-examination of the situation, and informed legislative changes. We want positive rights to be given to the vast majority of students to an education, and for teachers to be allowed to teach in a safe place - and effectively."
Today's conference at the Burlington Hotel in Dublin, entitled "School Discipline: A challenge", will address what the union sees as a growing discipline crisis in second-level schools here.
This includes teachers being faced with threatening behaviour, verbal abuse and even physical abuse.
A leading expert in school law, Mr Oliver Mahon, will underline that many teachers are being forced to work "under stress that frequently goes beyond what is healthy.
"They are entitled to expect their employers to ensure that their safety, health and welfare are reasonably safeguarded. In almost every case the cause of these lapses can be traced to a disruptive element in the school in question that seems immune from any meaningful sanction."
The situation was grave enough to warrant an Act of the Oireachtas to put in place a statutory scheme to protect the rights of all parties.
Failure to act now with effective short-term management responses, while long-term solutions were taking effect, risked leading to the promotion of a two-tier educational system.