Sir, - I wish to congratulate the ASTI and the TUI, who didn't sell their souls for the mess of pottage. I am, at this moment, ashamed to say that I belong to the INTO, which listened to the recommendations of its leader and accepted the package: I be along to the minority one third which read the document and realised that this was the death knell of the teaching profession which, up to now, gave of its time generously.
Everything here is imposed. In Britain, the government split staff from teachers engaged in the managerial side of schools. This Irish document does this cleverly by giving principals and post holders an extra few pounds, and calling them new posh names.
I marched for early retirement. I got three days' extra unpaid work in the year. I will also have to kneel down and declare myself (in writing) incompetent, burnt out, unfit, finished, before a special board if I wish to retire early. It may reject my most unprofessional behaviour and send me back in to teach with this shadow hanging over my head, if there are too many on the list.
How our general secretary could recommend this, and declare that those rejecting his advice were somehow lacking in grey matter and reading ability, I don't understand. I can assure him that I and my colleagues in the Drogheda branch (apart from 35) read it well and that is why we are so angry at the outcome.
I represent only myself in writing this letter, and I feel that the recommendation of the document was the reason why it was accepted at the end of the day. The "anti" people did not have recourse to the same "captive audience" in their speeches. - Yours, etc.,
Coney Hall,
Mornington,
Co Meath.