Letters to the Editor: Lack of class time renders Leaving Cert inconceivable

It seems increasingly unlikely that Leaving Cert students will be fully prepared to take the exam this year.

This week my 18-year-old daughter got her Leaving Cert number; we used to joke in fifth year that it was like a prison number.

This was before the “war” — that’s the term my daughter uses to refer to the times we are in now.

She really feels like she is in prison now, and has finally got her prison number. We all feel like we are in prison, with a never-ending round of working from home, work Zooms, school Zooms, making cups of tea, sandwiches, and filling the dishwasher.

My daughter has been in hospitaltwo times in the last month, and will be readmitted again next week. She is complaining of pain in her stomach — “a constant jabbing pain like being stabbed by a compass from her geometry set”; her words not mine.

She was admitted to A&E, where I had to drop her to the door and watch her go in on her own due to Covid-19 restrictions. It was heartbreaking — she is officially an adult but only just. She said every staff member in the hospital treated her with such compassion and care, and for that I am eternally grateful. The medics hummed and hawed, and are none the wiser as to what is causing the pain.

One of the consultants mentioned that he has seen an increase in Leaving Cert students attending his clinics with tummy pain and gastro problems. He feels the uncertainty surrounding the Leaving Cert is exacerbating his patients’ ailments.

I fear this county’s obsession with the Leaving Cert and the points race is causing huge damage to our young students who are about to embark on the next chapter of their lives. The Government needs to take ownership of this, take responsibility and make an actual decision regarding our children’s future.

I’m weary from the lockdown, we all are; everyone has Covid fatigue, but the anxiety level and stress levels in our house are ever increasing. I plead with the powers that be to use that power to make a plan for the future of our young people and their parents.

The current sixth-year cohort have already missed so much of fifth year and also now sixth year, how they can conceivably sit an exam is beyond me.

However, the prospect of predicted grades does not fill me with joy after the fiasco of last year.

Gillian O’Sullivan

Blackrock

Cork

Leaving Cert creating stress for students

The Leaving Certificate in general is a huge stress for students all over Ireland, but during a global pandemic students are stressing even more than usual. The remote learning isn’t helping in any way either. If anything it is making matters much worse.

Students in sixth year are expected to do their pre-Leaving and Leaving exams without having the whole learning course completed which, in my opinion, is completely unfair as it is not the student’s fault.

They should be allowed to make a choice between taking the Leaving Cert exams or having their teachers make a predictive grade. They should be able to make this decision as they are young adults, and it is the students taking the exams not the government.

All school staff including teachers, special needs assistants, cleaners, and secretaries should be vaccinated against Covid-19 now so that we will be able to go back to school as soon as possible and the Leaving Certificate students that opt to sit their exams will be able to complete them as normal.

Students have been going through this for long enough and it is just not fair on them.

Ella-Mai Griffin (14)

Student at Schull Community College

Co Cork

Faith cannot be imposed on youths

I partly agree with David Graham — ‘Religion has no right to force itself on schoolkids’ (Irish Examiner, Letters, January 27) — in calling for religious instruction to be made an optional, but for entirely different reasons. Secularists ought have no fear that being obliged to sit through ‘religion’ class will necessarily force them to become pious.

There exist people who sat through 12 years of history class only to emerge from school without the faintest interest or knowledge of history. The secularist objection is based on an erroneous understanding of the nature of ‘faith’. Mr Graham is wrong in thinking ‘faith’ can be ‘imposed’.

Faith (ie, core trust in God) cannot be imposed because it is a freely given gift of the Holy Spirit that we are free to say yes or no to. It is not in the nature of God to impose anything on us.

The many contributors to your recent article on those who drifted away from their Catholic faith are proof of this. However, I can agree that obligatory religion classes might be a waste of time. Much ‘religious’ instruction these days is barely fit for purpose and perhaps does more harm than good.

Nick Folley

Carrigaline

Co Cork

Liberal Ireland may be more oppressive than the old days

Although I found the school-going experiences of Ellie O’Byrne as related by her in her article ‘Non-traditional families still being marginalised’ (Irish Examiner, January 27) to be disturbing, I have to admit
to finding the experiences of her parents to be very understandable in the full context of the times.

Marriage was then constitutionally indissoluble, while local authority accommodation and mortgages were unavailable to cohabiting couples. If private landlords or B&B owners were reluctant to accept business in the absence of a wedding ring, they were possibly in a majority.

In such a ‘conservative’ society, what she calls the ‘utter disregard’ of her parents for convention, and their insistence (which was their right) that their relationship would not be defined from outside, were virtually bound to lead to awkward situations or privately enforced sanctions.

Decades later, divorce has been legalised and liberalised, while
cohabitation is no longer a bar to local authority accommodation or mortgages. But should an occasional private landlord or B&B owner show ‘utter disregard’ for the societal conventions of the present day by refusing to accept business which they find personally disagreeable, they could well find themselves facing civil, or criminal proceedings.

A refusal to allow one’s core values to be decided by those of a rapidly changing society, could well lead to financial penalties and a loss of livelihood, in spite of assurances of liberalisation.

Societies change, but what remains is the willingness to penalise those who refuse to conform to current social norms. In spite of claims and labels to the contrary, the new liberal Ireland might well prove to be more oppressive toward unfashionable views, than was its authoritarian predecessor. Time will tell.

Rory O’Donovan

Killeens

Cork

Extremes of wealth inequality in Ireland

In response to David McManus’ letter, ‘Create wealth before sharing it’ (Irish Examiner, Letters, January 27), I wish to make the following points:

Firstly, while it is true that Ireland has a very progressive income tax system, it should be remembered that income tax is only one part of Ireland’s overall tax system. A high Vat rate and other similar charges proportionally impact poorer households most, but raise a similar level of revenue as the income tax system.

Furthermore, while Mr McManus mentions Ireland’s record on income inequality, he forgets to mention Ireland’s poor record in relation to wealth inequality.

Wealth inequality in Ireland is much more extreme than income inequality, mirroring global trends. According to the CSO net wealth inequality in Ireland is over twice as high as net income inequality, with the top 20% of the population owning nearly half the wealth (43%) in the country. According to the CSO about 40-50% of Irish people struggle to build up any wealth, as they have no ability to save money after they cover all their basic expenses.

I welcome Mr McManus’ assertion that the rich should pay their taxes and it is shocking that the super-rich are hiding €6.3tn from the tax authorities around the world, according to research from the Berkeley economist Gabriel Zucman.

This is not a victimless crime as it is costing low-income countries billions of lost revenue every year that is sorely needed to help them respond to the Covid-19 crisis.

Finally, Mr McManus’ prescription that we must create wealth before we begin to share it ignores the equally valid need to address the power inequalities involved in the actual processes of wealth creation. We cannot expect those that have benefited most from global inequality to be the ones that provide us with solutions.

Michael McCarthy Flynn

Head of Policy and Advocacy
Oxfam Ireland

Thorncastle St, Ringsend

Dublin 4

Homelessness is a ‘shelter crisis’

From now on we should give the housing crisis the emergent vocabulary that it deserves — it is a ‘shelter crisis’. Homeless people have to live outdoors, summer and winter. These people need shelter from the elements. It is as simple as that.

Our Government is declaring that it is unable to provide its most vulnerable citizens with shelter.

The State owns a lot of land. It is
falling down with “expert advisors”.

The State wastes money in heroic amounts. From printers that can’t fit in the door to the National Broadband Plan contract. Yet it insists that it is unable to provide its citizens with shelter.

Michael Deasy

Carrigart

Co Donegal