Leading officials in the Association for Secondary Teachers, Ireland have failed to persuade the union's leadership to grasp chances to fix the strike, the Minister for Education, Mr Woods, said last night.
Seeking to expose differences between the union's general secretary, Mr Charlie Lennon, and the leadership, Mr Woods said: "I have met with ASTI officials on numerous occasions in order to seek a workable way of resolving this dispute.
"Some of those meetings seemed to have reached positions where a solution might be achieved. However, the ASTI negotiators seemed unable to convince the leadership to grasp the opportunities for resolution," he told the Dail.
In an often bitter speech, Mr Woods said: "It is clear to all at this point that the sole concern of the ASTI leadership is their 30 per cent pay claim over and above the terms of the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness.
"They do not seem to care who suffers in the process of achieving their aim; nor do they seem to care whether their claim is justified in the wider national context; nor do they seem to care if the national interest is damaged."
Earlier, he said: "ASTI has cynically targeted students sitting State examinations by curtailing teaching time between now and Easter and by overtly threatening arrangements to hold examinations without ASTI teachers."
The attempts to classify anyone who signs up to mark examination papers as a strike-breaker are "extraordinary" and "unworthy of a professional organisation".
"It shows the ruthless intent of the ASTI leadership," he said.
