Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I do not accept the Deputy's assertions at all. She was one of the people who wished the negotiations in respect of the Haddington Road agreement would fail. She denounced them before the ballot was ever held and showed scant regard for teachers, parents or pupils with her comments at the time.

The ASTI has 17,000 members. They have been balloted and have made their views known on the Haddington Road agreement. Some 300,000 public servants have accepted this agreement in the knowledge that this country was left in an unholy and unprecedented economic mess and that we must sort it out. That means the targets and the objectives set out must be achieved along with savings of €1 billion. I commend the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Howlin, and Mr. Kieran Mulvey on the extensive and complicated negotiations they had with the trade unions and the trade union members who accepted the Haddington Road agreement.

The ASTI members have made their views known on what they wish to do. On 23 September, the standing committee of the ASTI met and decided to begin industrial action in schools with effect from 2 October. The Deputy asked if I could prevent industrial action. This is a decision of the executive board of the ASTI which will see ASTI members withdraw from all meetings outside school hours, which will impact directly on parents. It will also see ASTI members refusing to participate in training for the new junior cycle, which will impact on parents and their children in second level schools, and it will see ASTI members refusing to take on any management responsibilities without being paid. That is the situation the executive of the ASTI has decided on.

I ask the ASTI to examine the cost to its members of remaining outside the Haddington Road agreement. Far from being some sort of perceived schoolboy bully, which the Deputy mentioned, the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Quinn, has merely pointed out the reality of the situation. This is the Haddington Road agreement and it will not be renegotiated. Clearly, the ASTI and its members must consider the implications for persons who stay outside the agreement. That is all the Minister said, which is his responsibility. In the context of 300,000 public servants having debated, voted on and accepted this, I ask the ASTI to consider the implications for the students, their parents and its members.

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