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.

“We’re not doing enough, but just like any other party, we need more women in politics,” he replied.

Other topics on which he fielded questions related to the cervical cancer vaccine, agriculture spending cuts, the poor usage of Irish in the Dáil and fears of a shortage of college places.

Mr Cowen said he associates east Cork with its fine sportsmen – although he didn’t specify if he included local FF TDs Michael Ahern and Ned O’Keeffe who also attended.

“This area is the home of John Fenton and some other great hurlers I used to watch with envy down the years,” he said.

The Taoiseach had arrived directly from Cork Airport with Foreign Affairs Minister Micheál Martin after flying from Belfast, where he said all their efforts with the talks in recent weeks had been worthwhile.

“But there’s no truth to the rumour Micheál called a halt for fear he’d lose his Cork accent,” he assured the girls.

Sinéad Keane asked if his party should accept responsibility for decisions which might have contributed to our current economic conditions. He said they take responsibility for all the decisions but he likened the suddenness of the economic collapse to meeting a cliff in the middle of a road.

The analogy was a rare exception among a set of responses mostly as long-winded as those he gives Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore – but at least the questions were far less spurious and a bit more constructive than those the Taoiseach faces in parliament.

Nonetheless, Mr Cowen looked relieved when the proceedings had ended to find a group of journalists waiting outside with questions that probably didn’t feel quite so tough.