St Al’s students show Cowen no mercy

IT might not have been Leaders Questions time in the Dáil but the tough grilling Taoiseach Brian Cowen faced from teenagers yesterday afternoon might have made him wish he’d stayed in Belfast.

Four hours after overseeing a historic agreement in the North, the Fianna Fáil leader’s next challenge was at St Aloysius’ College in Carrigtwohill, Co Cork where students greeted him with hard questions on current affairs. Far from the unplanned harrying he often gets from the media, however, the interrogation took place by arrangement as he met the fifth year social and political education class and younger students of civic, social and political education.

Among those to pose a question was Aisling Counihan, who despite being an Ógra Fianna Fáil member, pressed Mr Cowen on what he and his colleagues are doing to encourage women into politics and redress gender imbalance in the Dáil.