Irish Examiner view: Education is a priceless asset

Parents of primary school pupils have been complaining about the ‘voluntary contributions’ required from schools, with representative bodies backing them up. File picture: PA

It has been a challenging couple of days in terms of education costs, with the squeeze coming on for those at both ends of the system.

Parents of primary school pupils have been complaining about the ‘voluntary contributions’ required from schools, with representative bodies backing them up. Catholic Primary School Management Association (CPSMA) secretary Seamus Mulconry has said: “We have never been contacted by as many schools with financial problems as we were last year.”

Third-level students also face financial challenges, with their representative body, Aontas na Mac Léinn in Éirinn (Amlé), stating the Government has done a “U-turn” on student fees. Higher education Minister James Lawless has confirmed that student fees, reduced by €1,000 over the past three years, will now return to €3,000 as this year’s budget will not have a cost-of-living package. Amlé has termed the decision a “cynical and calculated betrayal”.

Inequity in education can result in a two-tier school and college system, one with ominous implications. Primary schools which must focus on fundraising may not be able to focus as closely on teaching. If the costs of attending college become prohibitive for those outside Dublin seeking college places in the capital, for instance, that will lead to an imbalance wherein only Dublin students attend Dublin colleges.

None of these possibilities augur well for balanced development at home and our reputation abroad.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin entered the third-level fees debate yesterday, indicating that it “might be possible” that those fees might be cut. Tánaiste Simon Harris has already told his Fine Gael colleagues that students and their families may be helped in the budget.

The issue has become a source of tension within the Coalition, as reported here last week. With the budget due in October, there is plenty of time for those tensions to ease, but students looking at a steep hike in fees will be hoping for clarity sooner rather than later.

Healthcare must be transparent

A review carried out by Michael Barry, clinical director of the National Centre for Pharmacoeconomics, has made some sobering recommendations on how pharmaceutical companies deal with healthcare professionals.

The review recommends 100% transparency from such professionals and healthcare bodies on payments from the pharmaceutical industry, and that the Health Service Executive (HSE) should stress that it does not support pharmaceutical industry payments to HSE healthcare professionals and healthcare bodies, accepting that such payments may influence behaviour in a negative way in terms of prescribing medicines.

Prof Barry pointed out that many payments were for healthcare professionals to attending conferences, travel, and accommodation, adding: “This is an area of particular interest to me, particularly because of the evidences out there that this can have an adverse impact on prescribing.”

He added that his view was that the pharmaceutical industry should not have any role in the education of healthcare professionals: “That is not just my view. If you look at the international literature, lots of articles carried in the New England Journal of Medicine over the years. I think it is because of the adverse impact that it can have on prescribing.”

The figures involved are significant. Data from 2023 shows that drug companies in Ireland made 4,509 payments to healthcare professionals and healthcare organisations, amounting to over €14.4m that year, including one medical practitioner who received €50,462.

Patients are entitled to expect that healthcare staff are giving them the best course of treatment possible, one that has nothing to do with the influence of pharmaceutical companies on what is prescribed for those patients. The transparency Prof Barry calls for is surely the least those patients can expect, though it should be a worry that that transparency does not already exist.

In the light of experiences in some other jurisdictions healthcare professionals should surely be more conscious of how these payments might be perceived.

What money can't buy

Last weekend, Amazon owner Jeff Bezos, one of the richest men in the world, got married to Lauren Sánchez in Venice. Convention dictates that we term this a ‘star-studded event’, given the number of famous people who were in attendance at the festivities, which are estimated to have cost approximately $50m (€43m).

This is a staggering amount to spend on an event where the hypocrisy was so blatant as to be almost admirable. Protestors in the Italian city rolled out a large poster in St Mark’s Square calling on Bezos to pay more taxes, for instance, given how much he could spend on his wedding.

Venice itself is under threat from rising waters due to climate change, a situation not helped by the behaviour of dozens of celebrities who flew in for the wedding on private jets. The fact that quite a few of the rich and famous at the ceremony like to flaunt their environmental credentials gave a fine glaze of irony to the proceedings, given the carbon emissions they generated in order to attend.

Will we come to see this event standing for a particular moment in time? Will we see it as the peak of the broligarchy, the high water mark of that tech billionaire brotherhood?

Perhaps, but we should not lose sight of what it means in real time. Contempt for the challenges we all face, a parade of vulgarity and vanity, and a modern proof of an old-fashioned saying: Money can’t buy class.

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