The Irish National Teachers Organisation are holding their Annual General meeting this week.

Yesterday, they heard from a teacher who has been physically assaulted in her own classroom on numerous occasions this year.

Tracey Whyte is a teacher at a Dublin school for children with severe emotional and behavioural difficulties. She spoke to John Keogh on Lunchtime today about the conditions she was facing in the classroom.

She detailed some of the physical abuse: "To date in our classroom, we have 60 assaults to staff, 20 of which I have suffered myself.

"Some have been headbutts to the face, some have been punched to the nose and face, kick to the head more than once... repeatedly punched in the stomach.

"I've been charged with a fire extinguisher and just by sheer luck got back into the classroom in time and I've had the fire extinguisher thrown at me."

She finished by stating: "At present, we have 91 days in four years and at the moment, assault leave is being used in sick leave.

"That's not acceptable.

"We need it to be very clear, we were not sick, we were assaulted and that was a different instance."

You can listen to her interview here: