Education Minister Norma Foley has come under under fire from teachers and SNAs who are demanding priority vaccines after the roll-out plan was reversed earlier this week.
Once the most vulnerable and people over 70 have received the jab, the roll out will be based on age groups, and not occupations as previously planned.
This new plan for the vaccination process has provoked anger from gardai and teachers who expected to receive vaccines at an earlier stage.
And the ASTI teachers union described the meeting on the new plan with Minister Foley as "unsatisfactory".
The union said the information presented at yesterday's meeting was "not sufficient to convince the ASTI of the rationale supporting the revision of the vaccination roll-out programme".
The Teachers’ Union of Ireland general secretary Michael Gillespie explained that teachers and other school staff were frontline workers, have high levels of contacts and often work in poorly ventilated classrooms of up to 30 students.
He continued: “The TUI and other unions representing school staff were told clearly and repeatedly by the Government that teachers, as essential workers, would be in the first third of the adult population next to be vaccinated.
"We trusted that assurance and that trust has now been betrayed.”
Meanwhile, the ASTI union president Anne Piggott told RTE’s Claire Byrne programme this morning that: "It doesn’t bode well with teachers.”
She questioned how it was fair for teachers to go into a crowded classroom while someone working at home can get vaccinated before a teacher.
Piggott said the union had concerns about pregnant teachers and older teachers.
The union is urging that the Government “honours the commitment given to education staff to be in the first 30% of the adult population to receive vaccination, after the most vulnerable have received theirs”.
Forsa, the union representing SNAs, is also asking that the Government review the decision.
The union’s head of education, Andy Pike, said that SNAs work in crowded settings where social distancing is not possible.
He wrote: “There are few other groups outside health and social care who work on a consistent basis providing intimate care without the ability to maintain social distancing.”
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