Closing schools: Batt was unfairly taunted

I HOPE the Fine Gaelers who dedicated themselves so heartily to taunting Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe about his decision to close the schools are happy.

On last Wednesday morning children’s lives were at serious risk as they skated about the roads in cars and buses or set out on dangerous, icy footpaths to walk to school.

So many people were forced to turn back that many schools had to close anyway, as first recomended by the minister last week, based on the best information available to him at the time – and which turned out to be more accurate than has been acknowledged since.