LAST UPDATE | 4 hrs ago

THE GENERAL SECRETARY of the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO) has confirmed that a second strike will take place this month amid an ongoing public sector pay dispute. 

It comes after primary school teachers who are members of the INTO began a work-to-rule today as part of wider industrial action involving more than 100,000 public sector workers. 

As part of work-to-rule, INTO members in primary and special schools will not work beyond their contracted daily teaching hours. 

The previous public sector pay deal expired at the end of June. It provided for general pay increases of 9.25% for public sector workers, along with a 1% local bargaining fund.

Talks between the unions and the government have not taken place since then, with the latter accusing the coalition of failing to make meaningful commitments on pay. 

The INTO previously stated that unless public expenditure minister Jack Chambers engages with public service unions in good faith, a 24-hour strike will be held on 14 October, with a second strike day on 21 October if required.

Speaking to RTÉ’s Six One News this evening, INTO general secretary John Boyle said that the second strike day will now go ahead. 

He said the Public Service Committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and the INTO held back-to-back meetings this afternoon.

“The decisions out of those meetings is that the strike that was indicated for 21 October will now also be going ahead,” he said, adding that members and employers will be formally notified from tomorrow. 

Boyle said the second day of strike action was going ahead “because Minister Chambers and his officials haven’t given us a credible basis for pay negotiations”.

“They want to do it on their limited approach that has been in place for the last 15 years, where they have a predetermined outcome and where they do not discuss cost of living until the end of the talks process, whereas we need cost of living to be dealt with at the early stages, or else it’s a waste of time going into talks.”

The INTO is the largest teachers’ trade union in Ireland, representing over 48,000 members.

Work-to-rule

As part of the ongoing work-to-rule, teachers in schools that use the Croke Park hours to provide extra supervision before and after school will no longer do so. 

Croke Park hours are additional working hours that were brought in by the Croke Park and subsequent Haddington Road agreements.

According to Máirín Ní Chéileachair, assistant general secretary of INTO, the responsibility for the safety of children on school grounds is that of the school’s board of management.

Schools which use the Croke Park hours have been instructed to carry out safety assessments. 

Parents were also informed that schools will not be opened until the official start time if it is not safe for children to be dropped off without supervision.

As part of the action, teachers will also refuse to attend formal parent-teacher meetings or staff meetings held outside normal school hours.

Extracurriculars involving teaching within official school hours will not be impacted, nor will activities teachers voluntarily take part in outside of school hours.

Ireland’s main second-level teachers union, the Association of Secondary Teachers in Ireland (ASTI) are also set to begin industrial action involving withdrawal from selected activities such as the Croke Park hours today.

’100% supportive’

The Journal spoke to some parents outside Scoil Mobhí in north Dublin, most of whom said they had not been affected by the work-to-rule at drop-off this morning. 

Pat said living near the school and having the option to work from home meant he faced no disruption getting to school this morning. But he said if things escalate, it would “certainly” affect all parents. 

He also said he fully supports the teachers, adding that the government needed to do more to support workers. 

“Everyone deserves a bit of the pie, I suppose, and people like teachers are as deserving as anyone. People are struggling, the cost of living is huge,” he said.

One mother also said she was not affected this morning. ”I think schools have it covered, to be honest with you, I’m not using any other childcare except the usual normal hours.

“But I’m 100% supporting the teachers,” she said. 

Another mother who works as a teacher in a different school said they would usually open the gate in the morning at 8.40am, but it remained closed until 8.50am this morning. 

“It’s not making a huge impact at all,” she said, pointing to things like not dealing with admin outside of school hours instead. 

“Emails would be the hardest. If I get an email at 10 o’clock at night, usually just to get it out of my head, I would respond [immediately], but now I can’t.”

Government attitude ‘unhelpful’

Speaking to RTÉ’s Drivetime programme this afternoon, Fórsa head of education Andy Pike said any disruption to public services is unfortunate, but that the union has seen an “understanding” from people that unions must represent the interests of members “in respect of a spiralling crisis in the cost of living”. 

On Friday, Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers accused trade unions of being ‘unwilling’ to negotiate amid the’all-out strike’.

In a strongly worded statement issued by his department, the minister said the unions and representative associations have decided to move to industrial action “rather than engaging in substantive talks”.

Pike described the attitude of the government and Chambers as “unhelpful”. 

“There are no constructive proposals coming from the government side on how to protect public service incomes against rising prices.”

He said the government usually conducts public service pay negotiation by leaving the issue of pay “until the very last minute”.

What they want to do is to talk about a range of different reforms and productivity measures, and then throw a figure out on the table at the very end of the process, more or less a take-it-or-leave-it bargain.

Pike said public service pay has fallen behind prices and inflation “to a considerable degree over the past number of years”.

“What we’re looking for is a commitment from the government side to protect public service incomes against rising prices and the rising cost of living.

“We haven’t put a number on that, but we do want to see the bona fides of the government side in terms of really addressing the shortfall in public sector pay versus inflation and rising prices.”

 An INTO ballot for industrial action had a turnout of 57.5%. Of those, 99.5% voted to support the action.

The union said it is taking the action “to secure a credible pay settlement for the second half of 2026 and beyond”. 

Speaking to Newstalk this morning, Boyle called government ministers’ claims about the union setting preconditions “an absolute lie” and said the government was setting preconditions of its own. 

The INTO says it has lost confidence in the government’s approach to pay negotiations, arguing that talks have focused too much on reforms rather than workers’ pay.

Boyle said teachers’ pay has increased by 20% over five years, while inflation has risen by 27.5%, leaving them 7.5% behind the cost of living. 

With reporting from Hannah Power