Teachers picketing schools yesterday morning looked deflated as they tramped around the gates in the rain and wind. Numbers appear to be falling each day and there were few enthusiastic horns sounded by passing motorists - fewer than back in November.
Teachers' spirits, already subdued by the duration of the dispute, can hardly have been lifted by the almost ceaseless criticism of their tactics this week.
A procession of commentators, industrial relations experts, fellow trade unionists, students, politicians and even members of their own union have called into question the strategy being pursued by the Association of Secondary Teachers, Ireland. With the din growing louder, ASTI members must groan every time they turn on their radios or open a newspaper.
Yesterday the union's general secretary, Charlie Lennon, found himself in the appalling position of having to justify, on the national airwaves, an ASTI ban on exam work relating to deaf, blind and dyslexic pupils. While he was able to explain the cold rationale behind it, running through the heads of many teachers listening in must have been the phrase: "It was not meant to be like this".
Teachers say they are "concerned" about the impact on students, but concern is a relatively worthless commodity so close to exams. What is needed is teaching in the classroom.
Some ASTI members in Co Tipperary appear to hold this view and, while they are not currently representative, according to most sources, their intervention could yet be significant. They have focused on the damage to students from lost teaching time and exam disruption.
For the past five months the union has been desperately trying to shift the emphasis on to the substance of its claim. But this has come across as avoidance and makes its critics more eager than ever to talk about the student victims, thus further damaging the teachers.
The poor turnout at yesterday's student rally - caused, no doubt, by the terrible weather - will not boost the ASTI either. Many teachers hoped a symbolic gathering of students outside the Dail would put the Government under intolerable pressure. The attendance will have been a letdown.
The unfortunate outcome of enduring such setbacks is that teachers will probably withdraw into themselves and act defiantly towards the Government and its supporters. As one teacher said yesterday: "The gloves are off."
But belligerence and defiance, while understandable in an emotional industrial relations climate, will not yield anything tangible, and teachers, whether they accept it publicly, know they need to find a way out.
While they desperately need a face-saving mechanism, the Government could also use one. It knows if it concedes to the teachers it will immediately be castigated for going soft on public pay policy by economists, business interests and, possibly, by its political foes.
So is there a way out? Bertie Ahern said yesterday the "industrial relations machinery of this State" was the only way forward. He said if the ASTI wanted "clarification" on benchmarking or the Labour Court recommendation it would be given. But the ASTI is adamantly against benchmarking and this position was given a forceful endorsement yesterday by Bernadine O'Sullivan, a former president of the union.
She said the concept came from Japanese car plants, where employers sought to cut costs and increase productivity by measuring the unit cost of each employee against the unit cost of production.
She said benchmarking was all about cutting the public service pay bill and pensions. She said that while the body might make some initially attractive awards its real aims were clear.
But what if the elements the ASTI objects to in benchmarking were removed? Could they be passed on to an independent third party for adjudication?
The ASTI says the bench marking body is not certain to award any money to teachers. But the Irish National Teachers' Organisation general secretary, Senator Joe O'Toole, says it will be like an ATM cash dispensing machine - full of easily obtainable money.
Again there might be a chance that if the ASTI got a guarantee of something from the body it would warm to the concept a little more.
The ASTI's other problem with benchmarking is that the body will issue a recommendation only in June 2002. It claims the body will be able to backdate this only to December 2001 and the ASTI claim covers 2000. It also says the body will be entitled to backdate only a quarter of the claim.
Again, is there no chance of some wisdom from the Government or an intermediary to deal with these points?
In the meantime, the Taoiseach says if the union wants him to step outside benchmarking it is "barking up the wrong tree". The solution might come in the ASTI accepting benchmarking but in a form which does justice to their concerns.
If these concerns were addressed, then only the somewhat forbidding name - benchmarking - would be left. Closing schools over a name surely would be the biggest folly we have seen so far in this dispute.
Emmet Oliver is Education Correspondent of The Irish Times.
eoliver@irish-times.ie