How close is that to hitting the mark in terms of what's needed to enhance the Desh system?

Now, we are very much a support desk system, and we see already the advantages it does about student retention, keeping students in school, all the things that it does.

So I do welcome the $2 million.

Education is a strange thing.

It's demand-led.

If there are students alive today, we knew they were alive 13 years ago.

So we should be planning way further ahead.

Okay, in a word, Budget 2027 for teachers, what's your reaction?

You think they're going to support the motion?

Well, absolutely, because this came from our members.

Our members voted in favour of supporting senior cycle redevelopment in May 2025.

And as part of that, we agreed that the local bargaining aspect of the last pay deal would be paid in return for our cooperation with senior cycle redevelopment, which is, you know, a change in the way we do things, a lot of work.

It was due to be paid on the 1st of September 2025.

At our Congress this year, We warned the minister.

We said that we are cooperating with this.

Is that what the issue is? Is that what they are hinting at?

Why is that?

Yeah.

So, yeah, right.

That's exactly it.

So when we're under pressure and stress like that, our attention narrows.

Our aperture narrows.

We focus on just what is the one goal that we're trying to do.

Do you have some specific techniques on how to do that exactly?

So if retention has become as serious as recruitment, where is the hard evidence of an exodus?

Well, the hard evidence is if you look at any school in the country, right, a lot of there's either subjects being dropped because they can't get a teacher in a specific area or One of the biggest research things, and the department's figures back this up, is that there's a huge amount of teachers in post-primary, what we call out of field.

In other words, they're teaching a subject they're not qualified in.

So we could have an Irish teacher, a teacher teaching Irish who's not an Irish teacher, but maybe went to a Gaelsco.

We would have teachers teaching science subjects.

They may only have one science subject.

They'd be teaching another science subject.

What is the one thing about the profession today that you would tell them, yeah, you should still do it because of this?

Like what, Michael? Give us an example of the kind of paperwork.

Okay, so we'll say, for example, they fill in the same form three times for different sections of the department.

There's a continuous expectation to return emails.

We have the most change of any system in the country over the last number of years.

Every month or two months, there's a new idea coming down from the department that must be imposed immediately.

in a school.

Now, some of them are very valuable, don't get me wrong, but all of that, all the work associated with all of that.

You do get great time off.

And would teachers be trained to de-escalate a situation if it appears to be getting out of hand?

That's exactly what teachers try to do, but you know, it can all, it can things can very quickly happen in a classroom situation.

You might notice it, you may be interfering with something else that's happened somewhere else.

It can happen on the corridors, it So when it does happen, it is unpredictable by its very nature, and you're looking at instant reactions.

Now remember as well, assault leave only covers physical injuries.

So it's reported physical injury.

It excludes like threats, intimidation, serious, so none of that is reported, which can be, that could be occurring as well, but that's not reported.

But there is support.

Michael, are digital devices now essentially ubiquitous in schools?

Well, they are if people believe all the hype about them, that you need them for the junior cycle and the senior cycle.

If we do need them, then the state should be providing them, Anton.

I mean, we believe that education, particularly primary and post-primary education, is a public service for public good.

We've given out free books now, which was a great movement to equalize everything.

And now it's been replaced by this demand that you need a device.

And these devices are coming in.

a requirement at home for them to have, a lot of kids are going home with homework that requires access to the internet and requires computers and devices.

I mean, about 77% of teachers saying that work-life balance is good and the majority saying that they are proud of their profession.

Yeah, that's correct.

Now, the TUI didn't ask this to be done.

This study days that I did it themselves.

But you're dead right.

It confirms a lot of the stuff that our surveys have done.

I mean, the great thing here is that teachers are still entering the profession for the right reasons, you know, to look after their students, to advance education because they care about people.

Odd then that 51% said, now they caveated it with, they would do it with realistic expectations involved, but that they would recommend the job to other people.

predictable end result of a burgeoning economy? Is it that people look at teaching and think, I'll go private sector and make more money?

No, I think it's more than that.

We are qualifying enough teachers.

There's absolutely, and they are the best in the world, because that's why people are coming here to recruit them.

What's happening is we're not dealing with the issues that are making teaching unattractive.

First of all, it's the fact that we have a scarcity of teachers.

So therefore, the workload in schools, we have the biggest class size in Europe, a huge amount of bureaucracy coming down on teachers.

That's a hardy perennial, isn't it?

A little earlier, I spoke with the TUI General Secretary, Michael Gillespie, and began by asking him why we're struggling to fill apprenticeships.

Well, I suppose if you look at schools, we've become overly obsessed with college places.

So the reason for that, of course, is there's not parity of esteem.

We need to be like Germany or these countries where they view vocational education, training for an apprenticeship as being a legitimate profession.

Thank you very much.

Research showed that only 8% of those people who applied or are currently doing apprenticeships got the information in school.

So schools have to do a job as well, building it back up again that apprenticeships are a legitimate road.

it a kind of snobbishness that still exists, Michael, that people look at an apprenticeship and go, well, it's not a degree or it's not a diploma and, you know, you don't have a qualification, whereas the polar opposite, of course, is true.

But what would you say to people expecting their results this morning?

Well, obviously, it's a result of the hard work students have put in and parents supporting them, the teachers who support them, the schools who support them, and they should enjoy the results today in a proper way with their families and don't do anything that I wouldn't do to celebrate those results.

I suppose what we'd have to welcome, of course, is the widening of the bans to 15%, which the TUI had advocated for a number of years and, in fairness, the Minister brought in for this year.

which is already showing that we're going to have an increase to 8% of the people who get merits and a corresponding 5% increase in the number of people who get higher merits.

So, you know, that's going to be good for students because it's going to build confidence and kind of give them a well-deserved sense of achievement because of this change.

Because obviously when we were only getting 3% in the last number of years, getting distinctions, it was very disheartening for the students, but it was also disheartening for the teachers.

Did the TUI have a position on what they heard?

Well, look, absolutely, you have to welcome SNAs into the schools and the additional teachers.