The Minister for Education, Dr Woods, said he was dismayed the ASTI rejected proposals by the facilitator in the dispute, Mr Tom Pomphrett.
Mr Pomphrett was told his proposals were accepted by the Department, he added. "We agreed to refund pay immediately that was deducted for `days of action' by ASTI teachers. However, it appears that the intransigence of the ASTI continues," he said.
It was not too late for the ASTI to reverse its decision, Dr Woods said. He added that the only people to suffer were students and their parents.
"There can never be an equitable solution to this dispute unless both sides can sit down and talk," he said. The Department of Education would do everything to ensure the exams proceeded normally and contingency plans would be put in place, Dr Woods said.
"It is unthinkable that any self-respecting trade union - any responsible body of membership of such a union - could or would continue to put the futures of so many children at risk when they have already received more than they originally claimed," he added.
The Fine Gael leader, Mr John Bruton, said the Minister was "very much out of his depth". "The way in which the dispute has now become focused on whether or not the Minister was right legally to deduct money for people who were in the classroom but not teaching . . . that is an issue which should be settled by the courts," he said.
Mr Bruton added that a council of teaching should be set up to resolve such disputes. Fine Gael's education spokesman, Mr Enda Kenny, said the rejection of Mr Pomphrett's proposals was a "devastating blow" for the exam students and their parents. "I believe the Labour Court must now urgently intervene by summoning both sides to immediate talks . . . nobody should be allowed to leave the Labour Court before a formula is found to bring teachers back into the country's classrooms," he said.
The decision of the Minister to dock the pay of ASTI members galvanised opposition among moderate union members, Mr Kenny added. "Michael Woods couldn't have done more to prolong this dispute. It is a cardinal rule of industrial relations that no party to a dispute should take any aggravating action while attempts are made to bring all sides back to the negotiating table. In breaching this principle, Michael Woods must take full political responsibility for the disastrous hardening of positions," he said.