Teachers are “offended” and “disappointed” by Michael O’Leary comments at a Fine Gael event.

Speaking at a Fine Gael event in Mullingar at the weekend, Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary said the Dáil is “full of teachers” – adding that he “wouldn’t generally employ a lot of teachers to go out and get things done”.

On Newstalk Breakfast today, the CEO doubled down on his comments, saying he was “perfectly correct” with his earlier comments.

Later in the show, Teachers Union of Ireland Secretary General, Michael Gillespie, said teachers have found the comments “offensive”.

“We’re disappointed with the reaction in the room,” he said.

Mr Gillespie said he agrees with Mr O’Leary that “we do need more teachers in the classroom”.

“We have a problem with teachers in terms of recruitment and retention of them in that we have a problem with class sizes in Europe,” he said.

“The workload is too heavy, and other jurisdictions have realised how good our teachers are and that’s how we’ve got this rush to foreign lands.

“The other problem is we have transferable skills and a lot of STEM teachers, home economics teachers, modern foreign language teachers are being attracted and being headhunted into companies that are here, foreign direct investment, which obviously is good for the country, but it’s causing problems in the classroom.”

'The will of the people'

Despite the high numbers of teachers represented in the Dáil, Mr Gillespie said he believes the history of teachers in Government speaks for itself.

“We live in a democracy and the people of Ireland when they are presented on the ballot paper with these people are deciding that the teachers who are putting themselves forward are the best candidates,” he said.

“They’re in the Dáil because we have proportional based representation and people are voting with them, they have confidence that they can do the job.

“We just have to look at the history of the people that are in the Dáil who were teachers and the jobs they’ve done.

“I don’t need to defend that - that’s the will of the people.”

'Dedicated to their job'

Mr Gillespie said the fact that people at the Fine Gael party “laughed” was “extremely disappointing”.

“It is very offensive that someone of Michael’s stature would show a lack of confidence in teachers, particularly because of the problem we have with education in Ireland,” he said.

“I think the fact that he said they don’t get the job done is what’s really offensive.

“Teachers get the job done every day in extremely difficult situations looking at a very diverse student body.

“They’re very dedicated to their job, I think that’s the problem.

“It’s not that they don’t get the job done – they get the job done every day.”

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Students listening to their teacher in a classroom, 22-8-13. Image: Wavebreak Media Premium / Alamy