A WATERFORD schoolboy may be about to hand one of his teachers a painful political lesson by beating her at the polls.
Even though Tom Raine starts his Leaving Certificate in just two days, his name is on the Fine Gael ticket for Tramore Town Council – alongside that of sitting councillor Ann Marie Power, a teacher at Tramore CBS, where he is a pupil.
It was actually Ms Power who advised the 19-year-old from Newtown Glen to run for the council. Fine Gael has three seats in Tramore and is hoping to increase it to five this time round.
Ms Power said she is "100% behind" her student.
Tom moved from Worchestershire in Britain four years ago with parents Ian and Vicky in order to be closer to his maternal grandparents.
Yesterday he was coping with the pressure by spending his days studying for his exams and canvassing for votes in the evenings.
The precocious political wannabe said: "My Leaving Cert begins on June 3, which is two days before polling day.
"Obviously this will be a very demanding week for me but a robust study plan has been devised that’s based entirely on the demands of the exams.
"During the day, I am in class and completely focused on my studies and then after dinner we’re out knocking on doors.
"That might seem like a long, hard day, but I have youth and energy on my side and, critically, I have huge support within the Fine Gael party."
One of the young candidate’s bugbears, in terms of secondary school education, is the use of prefabricated buildings as classrooms. "The rent on these is phenomenal. From a personal point of view, to be in a proper building gives you a different perspective on education," he said adding there should be a "national campaign to show that politics is not all about what’s on TV".
"It is also about what is going on in the community. I think young people have great ideas," he added. "Young people are interested in politics; we just have to make it accessible for them.
"Some people think I’m doing the wrong thing, but 99% of people are behind me."
With Leaving Certificate and elections out of the way, he hopes to study business studies and economics at the Waterford Institute of Technology.
a d v e r t i s e m e n t
This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Friday, May 22, 2009
