Difficulties over recruitment of Northern-trained teachers by schools in the Republic may be eased following a decision made at yesterday's session of the INTO conference.
The union decided it would support the Minister for Education in finding ways of ensuring that every child is taught Irish other than by making every teacher take a compulsory language test.
The union's general secretary, Senator Joe O'Toole, said a motion allowing for the scrapping of the compulsory Irish language qualification as a requirement for primary teachers was an "important decision" in the context of moves towards "an all-Ireland system of education". The INTO had raised the possibility of this happening as long ago as 1984.
Speaking partly in Irish, Mr O'Toole said the INTO had traditionally been seen as the guardian of the language, and "the sacred right of parents to have their children educated in and through Irish will be retained".
However, it was important in the current climate of reconciliation that the union should show a flexible approach to issues like the compulsory Irish test. "It is not enough to talk in the context of the existing curriculum. Everything has to change now, North and South. That is part of the price of peace."
He urged consideration of "more flexible arrangements within schools and between teachers to facilitate primary teachers who don't have an Irish qualification".
The motion, passed overwhelmingly by the conference, proposed that the savings made through the "peace dividend", North and South, should be invested as a priority in education and that there should be common recognition of teacher qualifications in both jurisdictions.
It recognised that "it is not necessary for every teacher in every school to have an Irish language qualification in order that schools fulfil their obligations to their pupils and that a more flexible approach to the Irish language qualification be considered".
Proposing the motion, Mr Des Rainey from Derry said the INTO had 2,500 members in secondary schools in Northern Ireland "who may wish to teach south of the Border, but the present Irish language requirement is an impediment to that".
"We don't see the necessity for the Secondary Registration Council to retain this requirement here other than in the context of teaching Irish as a discrete subject."
He urged the conference to allow the INTO leadership to "explore the Irish language qualification issue further so that a more flexible approach can be considered to allow greater mobility of teachers on the island".
Mr Donal O Loingsigh of the union's executive said "forcing adults to study for an Irish qualification which many of them don't need in their teaching could be a recipe for bitterness towards the language".
Mr Joe Conway from Waterford was one of only two speakers against the Irish test section of the motion. He said it would be "very, very difficult to fight for the survival of our language if the conditions for learning it in primary schools are diminished".
However, Mr Noel Ward from Tallaght said he did not recognise the situation of the Irish language painted by Mr Conway. He believed the language had "never been stronger", with the growth in gaelscoileanna, the creation of Teilifis na Gaeilge and its official recognition in the North.
Earlier this century, he said, the mainly Protestant Ulster Teachers' Union had broken away from the INTO on "an issue to do with nationality". It was time to reach out again "to those colleagues as well as to our own INTO members".
A Department of Education source said yesterday it would welcome any proposals from the INTO on removing or reforming the compulsory Irish test for primary teachers, but had not received any yet.
Conradh na Gaeilge last night strongly rejected the motion. The organisation's general secretary, Mr Sean Mac Mathuna, said the proposal would "undermine the basic and sound integrated nature of the current primary school curriculum". Rather than relaxing the compulsory Irish requirement for teachers, he said the Department of Education should provide Irish language courses for those teachers not fully competent in the language to bring them up to the standard required.