Analysis: Teachers see Education Minister Mary Hanafin as one of their own, writes Seán Flynn, Education Editor
Mary Hanafin caught the late evening flight to Kerry on Monday, specifically so she would have time to mix with INTO delegates in the lounge bars of the Great Southern Hotel into the early hours of yesterday morning. Hanafin is in her element in this company; less than a decade ago, she was in the classroom teaching Irish and history at Sion Hill in Blackrock, Dublin.
Today she may be a hugely successful Education Minister - but when she addressed delegates yesterday morning it was a little like the school principal addressing staff, rather than the politician addressing trade unionists.
Hanafin has only been in Education for 18 months, but, strangely, it feels like she has been there for much longer.
Yesterday she declared she would love to have a full five-year term in the job. A ministry looking after technology or infrastructure is not for her, she said. It would have to be some thing involving people.
She is acutely aware that the last education minister in her constituency, Niamh Breathneach, lost her seat, despite abolishing third-level fees. Such a fate seems improbable for Magill magazine's 'politician of the year'.
Hanafin has come to Education at a great time for a politician marked out for higher office. For five years the Education agenda was dominated by the bitter and highly personalised ASTI dispute, which divided staff rooms, closed schools and sapped the morale of many teachers.
She also succeeds an Education minister, Noel Dempsey, who - to put it at its mildest - was not universally loved by teachers. Dempsey was a visionary and radical minister who left an impressive legacy, but he also had a taste for confrontation.
Two years ago, for example, he seemed somewhat reluctant to visit the ASTI conference. He questioned whether the whole Easter ritual was jaded and outmoded.
Can anyone imagine Mary Hanafin raising questions about the format of the teacher conferences? The idea is unthinkable.
Hanafin has been successful as Minister in part because she has been successful in lifting the morale of the entire teaching profession after the bruising ASTI/Dempsey era.
You could see it at the INTO conference yesterday morning, where her address was received with great reverence and with some warmth.
Hanafin makes teachers feel better about themselves. They see her as one of their own .
It also helps that there is no great burning issue - and that she has plenty of money to spend. Astonishingly, there are now 4,000 more primary teachers in schools than in 2002.
At the INTO conference the big issue this year is class-size. The Republic has some of the most overcrowded classrooms in the OECD. Average class-size is 24, compared to 15 in the likes of Lithuania and Luxembourg.
The INTO has a compelling case when it says the Government has failed to meet its commitment in the Programme for Government, which promised an average class-size of 20 and under for those aged nine and under by next year.
You might imagine that Hanafin would be vulnerable on this issue. But she was able to deflect much criticism by pointing to the new priorities that have emerged since 2002.
She spoke about the 800 teachers whose sole job it is to teach foreign nationals, at a cost of close to €5 million. She talked about the unprecedented level of new investment in combating educational disadvantage.
Only for these new priorities, the commitments on class-size would have been easily met, she told the conference.
In response, the union's general secretary, John Carr, promised to bring the class-size issue to every school and every parent in the State in the run-up to the general election.
The issue may, in time, prove difficult for Hanafin. But in truth, there was little sense of this yesterday. You get the impression that a deal to keep both sides happy will be assembled in the run-up to the election.
Carr believes 200 more teachers could resolve the problem.
The INTO has already secured notable victories for its campaigns for new and upgraded schools and for special needs and disadvantaged schools. It seems unlikely it would open up a new frontier on class-size unless it was also confident of victory.
Hanafin left Killarney en route for the TUI conference in Tralee yesterday with delegates' applause probably still ringing in her ears.
It may be that all political careers ultimately end in failure. But for now, Mary Hanafin, former teacher and Education Minister, is riding high.