Saturday, January 14, 2012
AT least the Mayans put the end of the world off until December — sadly, the Government is not so generous and has decided the life chances of some of the most vulnerable children in the Irish school system should be extinguished a few months earlier.
The ancient central American civilisation’s highly sophisticated 5,125-year calendar runs out four days before next Christmas, prompting various New Age freaks and weirdos to prepare for the destruction of the Earth on that date.
But this fast lane to desolation was not quick enough for Education Minister Ruairi Quinn, who wanted disadvantaged children to face an earlier educational apocalypse by removing 428 teachers from their classrooms in September.
The Mayans were believers in appeasing their three main gods with human sacrifices — a practice clearly envied by the Government as it was happy to sacrifice the future of children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds on the altar of austerity to try and win favour from our own holy trinity, the EU-IMF-ECB Troika.
With a pre-Budget flick of the ministerial pen, Quinn wrote-off the extra educational supports that have done so much to improve levels of literacy and numeracy in communities the boom never reached and where an aspiration-suffocating air of austerity is nothing new.
After four weeks of flip-flopping and feeble excuses, Quinn has now been shamed into an about-face on the issue, but someone of his experience in a government that continually insists it is firm, but fair, should never have got into this mess in the first place.
You would think that any administration serious about living up to its self-professed agenda of social justice would do all it could to help, not harass, groups like the disabled, the elderly and disadvantaged children — yet it has menaced all three in the space of a month.
It began with Joan Burton’s disgraceful attempt to snatch 46% of benefits back from disabled teenagers, a move made even more objectionable by the Social Protection Minister and her colleague, Brendan Howlin, citing concerns the money was making the recipients "wayward" and prone to turn down jobs.
Well said, Burton.
I don’t know about you, but I, for one, am sick of these cash-happy gangs of "wayward" disabled teenagers running amok in shopping malls and refusing to do a good day’s work — because, as the 500,000 people on the dole know, jobs are hanging off the trees in this country, especially if you happen to be disabled.
A swift U-turn followed, or rather, the Taoiseach said withdrawing the benefits from 18-21-year-olds would be "paused," though he could not quite bring himself to admit the offence caused, and now we have Quinn actually ‘fessing up to making a mistake, yet trying to hid behind risible excuses.
Presumably Quinn was joking when he said he was "new to this," but as a highly experienced former finance minister — indeed, one of the most respected holders of that office in recent decades — it should not have taken this level of opposition to make him see sense.
The Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools initiative has consistently raised literacy and numeracy levels in schools which are considered ‘challenged’ — the more intensive teaching and group work has also given much-needed emotional and social support to children whose home life is often grim.
Such a successful exercise in social equality and direct educational aid should never have been considered for cuts in the first place — and certainly not by a government about to slip yet another €1.25bn into the bulging pockets of Anglo bondholders, despite that institution being branded a "dead, criminal organisation" by Independent TD Stephen Donnelly.
As with the attack on disabled children, and the shake-down of tens of thousands of elderly people who owed no back taxes, the bid to pull away one of the few educational lifelines available to some of the poorest children in the country smacks of very poor political emotional intelligence.
Labour deputies, many ex-teachers, queued up in the Dáil chamber to whine that Sinn Féin did not have a monopoly on combating poverty.
But by allowing Labour to leave its social justice flank wide open to such plunder by the Shinners, that is exactly how it will increasingly look to voters.
Indeed, Sinn Féin can rightly claim the credit for the climb-down as it was their ratcheting-up of pressure via an emergency Dáil debate that forced Quinn into the partial reverse in policy, which still falls well short of lifting the threat completely.
Labour has been a disgrace on this issue for the past month, right from Eamon Gilmore’s initial, high-handed and delusional denial it would impact badly on the poorest pupils, as he insisted the teaching positions affected were just "legacy" posts — as if the disparity between learning opportunities and social background had suddenly been blown away with special pixie dust.
Faced with backbench anger, Quinn announced a four-week review to assess the impact of the cuts on poor children — but why the hell was that not done before the Budget in the first place?
This also fits into the pattern of a government talking down to us over the need for a second bail-out as ministers slip into the Fianna Fiasco territory of wrapping themselves up with so many lies no one will believe anything they say soon.
Despite the denials, it is blindingly obvious to everyone we will need a new bail-out deal at the end of next year — why not just admit it?
Why would we go to the markets to borrow money to keep the hospitals running, when — even if they did see us as a risk worth taking — it would cost us swingeing interest rates in the region of 8% when we would get 3% or less from the EU/IMF?
Enda Kenny’s attitude to the inevitable is as patronising as NASA’s attempts to allay fears about the world ending on December 21, which is what the Mayan-mesmerised morons fear.
The agency’s website states: "Nothing bad will happen to the Earth in 2012."
Unfortunately, a lot of bad things are going to happen on Planet Ireland in 2012 — and the way ministers came so casually close to effectively ending the educational world for the most deprived children in our society provides a much scarier omen for the future than the Mayans ever managed.
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