Teachers are to receive a pay rise which was delayed in a dispute over parent/teacher meetings and standardisation of the school year.
Agreement was reached with the Department of Education on the issues at the Teachers' Conciliation Council today.
The increases under Benchmarking and Sustaining Progress were due at the end of January but the Minister for Education, Mr Dempsey, withheld them until the matter was resolved.
The Minister today said he was pleased the difficulties had now been "comprehensively" dealt with.
"I am confident that the new agreement can deliver for parents the certainty that they need in relation to school holiday periods," Mr Dempsey said.
The payments for second-level teachers will be paid on March 3rd, backdated to January 1st, 2004.
Three unions representing primary and secondary teachers were involved. ASTI, the TUI and the INTO were angered and surprised when the payments did not appear in their pay packets and threatened to picket schools.
But unions leaders were in more conciliatory mood today.
"This has been dragged out for too long and has been detrimental to relations between the partners. However, it is now time to move forward in the interests of the education service," said ASTI deputy general secretary, Mr John White.