Mr O’Leary doubled down on the comments on Monday morning, repeating his claim that there are “too many” teachers in the Dáil. He said he was making a “serious” point about the need for more diversity and that there was a need for more business owners to become TDs.

This country is facing enormous challenges over the next decade, where the population is going to rise from five to six million people' - Michael O'Leary

It follows widespread condemnation over comments Mr O'Leary made at the launch of Fine Gael TD Peter Burke’s election campaign over the weekend, where he called for more people from the private sector in the Dáil over teachers, and that he “wouldn’t generally employ a lot of teachers to go out and get things done.”

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.