Further education gets nothing to save for rainy day

ON Wednesday I stood outside the Dáil, in the rain, with a few hundred of my TUI colleges from further education colleges throughout Ireland while Finance Minister Brian Cowen presented his giveaway budget in this time of plenty.

I had a slim expectation that Education Minister Mary Hanafin might roll out a surprise for further education (FE) colleges in the Budget.

She was surely going to make some inroads into the implementation of her own department’s McIver report (published in 2003).