Sir, - As a former secondary teacher and member of the ASTI for 30 years, may I beg the union's electorate to accept the Labour Court proposals in the forthcoming ballot?
Much has been written about the strategic blunders of the campaign; the isolation from the other teaching unions and from the wider trades union movement, the rejection of the PPF and of benchmarking, the attitude of entrenchment which daily leaves the union with fewer allies and more defectors. Such tactics as a mass walk-out, the heckling of a guest speaker and the chanting of the outrageous "Tiocfaidh ar la" slogan will hardly inspire a restless and insecure teenage population to practise self-discipline in the classroom.
I would appeal to the ordinary members of the ASTI to consider the bigger picture - of a world in which, every five seconds, a child dies from the effects of poverty, where global economic instability threatens to draw the teeth of the Celtic Tiger, where agriculture and its many ancillary industries live in the shadow of pestilence.
Every teacher I have ever known teaches and practises moral responsibility, compassion and independence of mind. These qualities, if brought out in force to accept the recommendations of the Labour Court, would remedy many of the wounds which the ASTI has inflicted upon itself in this campaign.
Finally, to fend off accusations of ingratitude or treachery, may I ask what ASTI member has not, in childhood, been comforted by the assurance that a few healthy scabs were a sign of healing? - Yours, etc.,
Mary McHugh, Fingal Place, Prussia Street, Dublin 7.