Overview:The Easter teacher conferences could scarcely have gone better for Mary Hanafin. Mary Hanafin's next task is to secure more money for education, writes Seán Flynn, Education Editor.
Fourteen rounds of applause from Asti delegates, a standing ovation on arrival at the INTO conference and sustained applause from the TUI. Hanafin, as an Asti member put it, tickled the tummy of teachers all week.
After the bitterness of the Asti dispute and the confrontational Dempsey era, she has made teachers feel better about themselves.
Asti president Susie Hall said the Minister was "a credit to the Asti". It may have sounded trite, but this comment aptly sums up the sense among teachers that Hanafin is one of their own.
A former teacher (and Asti member) at Sion Hill, Blackrock, Ms Hanafin has a natural empathy with the profession.
You could see this first hand on the eve of the INTO conference on Easter Monday. Hanafin worked the bar for hours, chatting to teachers, enjoying the craic and shaking hands. You could tell she was in her natural habitat.
It helps that she is such a natural communicator and a good story-teller. She rarely glanced at her notes during her address to the INTO.
Instead, she rolled out some funny tales from her visits to over 100 different schools since she became minister.
An example: she asked one lad in a Donegal school why he thought the Minister had decided to visit his schools. It is because of the mice, he replied.
Her address to the INTO received sustained and heartfelt applause.
Such was the warm glow generated by the speech, that it would take an hour or so before the INTO leadership realised that the Minister had delivered nothing of substance on their priority - reducing class size.
By teatime, there were even some revisionists in the INTO , claiming the Hanafin speech was all style and no substance.
That may be going too far.
But, when you look back on the week, it is clear that Hanafin received a warm reception because of her own personal style and not because of the goodies she delivered for education.
She did bring some good news. About €45 million to help combat educational disadvantage, 100 extra guidance counsellors and 100 new jobs for teachers of Post Leaving Cert (PLCs) courses. But this was relatively small beer given the scale of the literacy and numeracy problems in poorer areas; the 100,000-plus children in classes of 30 or more and the relatively low level of education spending in the Republic compared to other OECD states.
By week's end, several teachers pointed to the irony that Noel Dempsey - regarded by some as a bête noir - was actually much more successful when it came to securing funds from Cabinet.
Dempsey was spectacularly successful in securing funds for school buildings and special needs.
In fairness, these are early days for Mary Hanafin. More resources for disadvantage could be rolled out when she publishes a new framework document on the issue next month. Concerted pressure from the INTO could also see more funds being made available to address the scandal of overcrowded classrooms.
The teaching unions will want to see real and substantial progress on all these key issues before Mary Hanafin returns to their conferences next year.
Between now and then, the new Minister faces one key task - she must convince her Cabinet colleagues to release vastly more resources for education.
Editorial comment: page 17