Tough talk — or a joke at teachers’ expense?

IT has at last dawned on me why media reports on the views of Dr Edward Walsh, a fairly well known public figure, are almost always accompanied by the description “founding president of the University of Limerick”.

Some of his opinions and suggestions are so silly that editors and programme directors must feel it necessary to remind us he was, after all, a university president so we have to publish his views and give them air time.

His latest opinion looks at first sight like a joke: “I don’t think it would be a great crisis if, in fact, all of the teachers went on strike for a year. We would then save €4bn and we would avoid an extra 60,000 people coming onto the workforce.”