Hanafin offers to facilitate resolution at teacher college

EDUCATION Minister Mary Hanafin has offered to facilitate a resolution to difficulties at Marino Institute of Education (MIE) despite a report from its trustees criticising her department.

The report of Farrell Grant Sparks, published on Monday, said the intervention of the Department of Education to help set up interim management structures only served to compound difficulties which arose after the departure of Caoimhe Máirtín as president of its teacher training college, Coláiste Mhuire Marino (CMM), last summer, after she claimed she was bullied.

Ms Hanafin said last night that she was concerned that strained relations are continuing at Marino.

“My department is willing to facilitate any process which will restore equilibrium at the college,” she said.

In her reply to a parliamentary question yesterday, she said CMM is covered by the Freedom of Information Act, despite the consultants’ report stating that its inclusion on a list of colleges covered was a mistake, presumably of the Department of Education.

The question was asked by independent TD Finian McGrath and also raised in an Irish National Teachers Organisation (INTO) statement, in which general secretary John Carr pointed out that CMM has an FoI officer and responded to a request under the act from the union in 2004.

Ms Hanafin’s offer of facilitation followed calls for facilitation to get under way soon to resolve the dispute.