‘Modern Ireland’s pupils open to risks’

THERE are predators of all sorts ready to shut down schoolchildren’s lives whether with abuse or drugs or bullying or neglect, warned President Mary McAleese.

The freedoms opened up by our economic success may also be leaving Irish children open to such risks from technology, unwholesome role models, consumerism and drugs the President said yesterday.

She told primary school principals that the pupils under their stewardship are the first generation to grow up in such a prosperous, successful and confident Ireland.

“This generation has a freedom like no other but that very freedom places them right in the thick of many forces over which they have little or no control. And they are only children,” she said.

Speaking at the Irish Primary Principals’ Network (IPPN) conference in Killarney, she said that pupils face long commutes, with both parents working in most families and grandparents often living long distances away.

“They have televisions and computers which can entertain, amuse and educate but can also betray their innocence and their vulnerability,” she said.

The President said children have role models from sporting legends to rock stars, some of them hugely inspirational for all the right reasons, with values that a parent or teacher can wholeheartedly endorse.

“But they are also exposed to others whose human frailty is masked by a fame which children often lack the subtlety to see through. There are things that make kids of them and things that make mere consumers of them,” she said.

“There are things that shield them and things that exploit them. There are predators of all sorts ready to shut down their little lives whether with abuse or drugs or bullying or neglect,” Mrs McAleese said.

She said those predators can be in their families, their schools, their streets, their magazines, their computers, their televisions, and that they can be familiar or strangers.

The President also acknowledged the welcoming role of principals and their schools in helping to integrate the country’s large immigrant population.

“Some countries took generations to absorb waves of migrants, Ireland did it in just a few years,” the President said.

“All those inevitable issues to do with adjusting to language, culture, loneliness, to do with integrating into a new community, settling down, making friends, all those things landed on your doorsteps and they were responded to with great care and commitment,” she said.