Woman describes 'hell on earth'

Limerick city teacher Maura Carroll got a standing ovation at the TUI conference when she catalogued the "absolute hell on earth" she and other colleagues endured on a daily basis.

"Where I teach I meet students every day who have come from housing estates where there would have been drive-by shootings the previous night. And they talk casually about going and bringing out their sawn-off shotguns. That sort of talk obviously makes teachers very nervous," she said.

"There are certain students with certain surnames in our city and if those people say no to you, you don't challenge them. And if you do, you go home that night very nervous wondering what is going to face you, maybe not the next day but down the line."

She said she would love if Mary Hanafin could come and work in her school and "suffer, as my colleagues and I have to do week after week".

"I would love her to have to go to a classroom and step over the blackboard as I have done on occasions.

"Or bring down a cloth because you know you are going to need it to wipe the spit off the board. Or be met with an egg flying past you as you go in the door.

"Or have to look at raw meat smeared onto the walls. [ There are] holes burst into walls, lump hammers used to knock speakers off the walls, burst holes in the partitions, graffiti everywhere."

Ms Carroll said teachers were being "barricaded into classrooms, barricaded out of classrooms".

Students shouted and roared if they were refused permission to leave the classroom.

"And you would be told in very graphic detail what they would do if you don't let them go to the toilet, and they might even demonstrate for you what they would do," she said.

TUI assistant general secretary Declan Glynn told delegates of one case where a school was awaiting the return of an expelled student.

He had stabbed a student with a biro, drawing blood. He had brandished a knife, assaulted a teacher and serially verbally abused teachers.

On one occasion he approached a teacher from behind with a hammer.

The boy was expelled, but appealed the expulsion and won his case on the basis that the school had allegedly failed to provide the student with a programme of remedial support for his behaviour, leading him to believe that he could do anything.

This was "simply outrageous and preposterous", Mr Glynn said.