Hanafin urged to issue book on Collins

EDUCATION Minister Mary Hanafin is being urged to issue books about Michael Collins and James Connolly to schools to make up for the Government’s distribution of Eamon de Valera biographies to students.

Ms Hanafin was accused of trying to “politicise history” after it emerged her department had sent copies of Judging Dev, historian Diarmaid Ferriter’s favourable study of the Fianna Fáil founder, to 720 secondary schools nationwide.

In all, 2,000 copies of the biography were distributed at a cost to the taxpayer of €35,925.

Now, the Labour Party wants the minister to redress the balance.

Labour education spokesman Ruairí Quinn is calling on Ms Hanafin to also distribute biographies of Fine Gael’s spiritual founding father Michael Collins and Labour founder James Connolly.

Specifically, Mr Quinn is proposing Michael Collins by Tim Pat Coogan and James Connolly by Donal Nevin.

The Labour TD is urging the minister to distribute these works “in the interest of providing a balanced view of Irish history to secondary school students”.

Meanwhile, Fine Gael has reiterated its criticism of the decision to distribute the Judging Dev book.

Fine Gael education spokesman Brian Hayes said the move was “an example of the arrogance of Fianna Fáil in thinking they can get away with politicising education”.

But Ms Hanafin said she had “never heard such a narrow focus on history being taken by any politician”.

Speaking on RTÉ Radio, the minister said the book was “a beautiful presentation”, and stressed it was department officials who recommended distributing it.

“It has primary sources in it, and part of the Leaving Cert course now... is that students have to study original documents, and that made this book stand out from all other biographies that have been written,” she added.