The Teachers' Union of Ireland has called the Minister for Education and Science's admission that legislation to provide statutory teacher and parent representation on VECs will not be passed before next June "outrageous and disgraceful".
Mr Joe Carolan, the TUI president, said Mr Martin had given repeated commitments to bring in this legislation. "It was obviously expected that this legislation would be in place before next June's local elections to allow new appointments to take place. Now we could be waiting until 2004 before new democratic arrangements are in place," he said. He demanded that a short amending Bill be tabled immediately to provide for this representation.