Ryanair boss defends remarks on teachers after backlash

Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary has defended comments he made about teachers, which sparked a row on the opening weekend of the Irish general election campaign.

Politicians and teaching unions reacted angrily after he said he would not employ teachers to "get things done" and that the Dáil (lower house of Irish parliament) was "full" of them.

He had been addressing a gathering of the Fine Gael party, which is led by outgoing Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) Simon Harris.

On Monday, Mr O'Leary said more businesspeople were needed in the Dáil.

Footage of his remarks at the Fine Gael event on Saturday was shared on social media, prompting a backlash against the airline boss.

He said: "The Dáil is full of teachers. Nothing wrong with teachers, I love teachers, but I wouldn't generally employ a lot of teachers to go out and get things done."

Harris has distanced his party from Mr O'Leary's comments, calling them "crass and ill-informed".

The taoiseach described teachers as "the backbone of Irish society" and said that he was not sure many people who would survive five minutes at the top of a classroom.

Speaking to Newstalk on Monday morning, Mr O'Leary said he wanted to see more people entering the Dáil from the private sector because he believed they would help to deliver change.

"That's the energy we need if we are going to fix the infrastructure challenges and provide housing and infrastructure for six million people," he said.

He said the country needed teachers delivering excellent education in the classroom but that he did not necessarily think they were the people who would get things done in the Dáil.

Mr O'Leary said he believed some former teachers who had previously elected to the Dáil had performed poorly.

He singled out the outgoing Tourism and Culture Minister Catherine Martin as an example and said her implementation of a passenger cap at Dublin Airport had limited the tourism industry.

She was "like a rabbit caught in the headlights" as she tried to fix problems at the Irish national broadcaster RTÉ, he said.

Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald criticised Mr O'Leary's remarks, saying that "teachers get the job done every day in the classroom for our children".

"I think it is completely inappropriate that they would be jeered and demeaned in the way that they were at a Fine Gael event," she added.

The outgoing Tánaiste (Deputy Prime Minister) and Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin said he "100%" disagreed with Mr O'Leary's comments.

Green Party leader Roderic O'Gorman said he was "really appalled" by what he described as the disrespect of the Ryanair CEO towards the teaching profession.

The Social Democrats also condemned what they called "open mocking" of teachers at the Fine Gael event.

Ivana Bacik, the leader of the Labour Party, said it was disappointing to hear anyone taking "snipes or sneers" at teachers.

Harris spoke to the US President-elect Donald Trump on the telephone on Monday evening while travelling to canvass in County Donegal.

"We discussed the deep and enduring economic and historic ties between our two countries", he told the Irish state broadcaster RTÉ afterwards.

The car in which he was travelling pulled in along the route to allow him to speak to Trump.

Harris said the president-elect also said he would like to see him in person.