The ghost of a visionary education minister returns to haunt Hanafin

IT IS not surprising that the ghost of Donogh O’Malley, the Fianna Fáil minister who introduced free secondary education, was invoked this week at the annual teachers’ conferences. On Monday, INTO president Angela Dunne urged the current minister, Mary Hanafin, to emulate O’Malley in standing up to the Department of Finance on the issue of overcrowded classes in primary schools.

Dunne insisted: “None of his successors today has the courage to take the bold steps that are needed to reduce the size of Ireland’s overcrowded classes.”

In announcing his plans in September 1966, O’Malley said: “Every year, some 17,000 of our children finishing the primary school course do not receive any further education. This means that almost one in three of our future citizens are cut off at this stage from the opportunities of learning a skill and denied the cultural benefits that go with further education. This is a dark stain on the national conscience.”