An insider's guide to education: So, the poaching row - in which UCD boss Hugh Brady was accused of hunting down staff from other colleges - is over at last. If the spin is to be believed, all is sweetness and light between Brady and the six other university presidents.

So, what are we left with? Certainly, the whole bitter affair has unsettled the relationship between UCD and several Government ministers. But there is probably no lasting damage.

And relations between Brady and the other six presidents? There is some residual bitterness. For some, Brady's radio interviews with Morning Ireland and George Hook left a sour taste. But everyone now sees the sense of packing up and moving on - if the harmonious atmosphere at last week's get together of The Magnificent Seven is any guide.

So who was the big winner from the whole episode? Take a bow, NUI Galway president Iggy Ó Muicheartaigh, whose forthright opinion piece in this paper was widely admired.

Here's an awkward question - has the poaching row been all bad for UCD? The controversy has helped Hugh Brady to convey a very positive message about UCD as a modern, cutting-edge institution, determined to recruit the very best.

It all dovetails nicely with UCD's marketing message, which focuses on Belfield as a university to match your ambitions.

One other matter to tidy up. Why was Mary Hanafin so exercised about Brady's attempted poaching of a research team from Maynooth? Anything to do with the fact that she is a Maynooth graduate and also sat on the governing body for many years? No, say her officials - it was a wider third-level issue.

It has been a hugely significant summer for second-level schools with the end of the points race as we know it marking a landmark moment in Irish education. And the reaction from the ASTI? Nothing. Instead, we were treated to a national campaign on class size - one year or more after the INTO identified the issue as its number one priority.

It is the talk of every staffroom in Dublin and beyond - those "underperforming" teachers who still emerge from the Leaving Cert with a good sprinkling of A grades. Why? Because their poor students trudge off to the Institute and other such places for grinds.

As one principal noted last week, it makes it difficult to impose yourself on the staff room when "your worst teachers get the best results". Ouch!