O’Rourke on autism - Talk is cheap

IF THERE is something a Dáil deputy wants changed there is an established process: plan for it, lobby for it and, finally, vote for it when it comes to the floor of the house.

Sometimes all of this goes awry in our rigid system of party whips and party lines. It does little to foster confidence and a lot to sustain cynicism.

Over the last few days Mary O’Rourke has talked the good fight about Department of Education policies on provision of teaching for children with autism.

She disagreed with them and said so, happy to get a few minutes in the limelight and happy to convince some of her constituents that she was, in that politician’s indispensable cop out, “doing all she could for them”.

However, when it came to voting she put her party before her people and supported the very policy she so roundly condemned.

No wonder politics is regarded as such a sleazy business.