Dear Batt ...

Todays entry takes the form of an open letter to the Minister for Education.

Dear Minister O'Keeffe,
I write to you today, not just in my professional capacity, but as a parent. I'm a parent of a child with special needs. You'll remember James, if you think for a moment. When you were a TD in Cork South Central, I went to see you at your clinic. I was worried about the future of his little school, Sonas. I was also worried about his prospects of moving to a Primary School when, at the age of 6, he would be too old for Sonas. At the time, Minister, you reassured me. You said that the Government had a strong policy on Special Needs Education, and that I need not worry. As it turned out you were right. James, who has mild Autism, moved from Sonas, to a newly established unit at St. Columbas in Douglas. There, I am thrilled to say, he has thrived. In a small class, with a highly experienced teacher, and with Special Needs Assistants, he has learned to read, write, spell, add and subtract, and even recite his tables. He loves school (OK.. hates homework but you can't have everything..) and his mother and I marvel every day at the progress he has made. We could not be happier.

Now, Minister, we fear that you are on a mission to spoil everything.

Three weeks into the new term, we got a letter from the school. Because of your departments decision to limit funding to cover substitute teachers, we now face the possibility of James being sent home if his class teacher gets sick. You claimed publicly, when I put this question to you, that your department had provided €2m in extra funding to avoid such a situation, but guess what, Minster.. even if that money exists.. the Principal has no record of its provision, much less an idea how to claim it... and neither does any other principal that I've spoken to! You were asked to give the Special Needs sector an exemption from the substitution cutbacks, yet all you could produce was a stock answer written by the civil servants in your office, justifying the slashing of the sick-cover budget!


We now must live with the certainty that James will be sent home if his teacher is ill,
because the School simply cannot manage the situation under its present resources. It's not just a matter of letting the boys into another class for the day. It just wont work!

Now, just as this sinks in, after you failed to address it, Minister, you unleash another lash at my son and his classmates. The mandarins in your Department have come up with the idea that money will be saved by closing down special classes and forcing the pupils in them to have to integrate into mainstream. A number .. nine.. has been plucked out of the air and any school that doesn't have nine kids with special needs, is to face losing its special class..


Minister, this is a disgrace, an injustice and a public outrage.

It amounts to a calculated move by your Department to attack the softest of all targets, to impose hardship on the most vulnerable, and to ruthlessly pennypinch in the most cynical and targetted way. It's a move that will save a mere pittance, but a move that will slow, and in many cases, even stop .. or worse still, reverse the wonderful progress being made by children like my little boy.

We are lucky. James's school has the numbers, and he is likely to be unaffected. Others, however, including families that I know well, cannot be assured of the same. On the day that the Government injects €7 Billion of taxpayers money into the banks, to bail them out of a hole they dug for themselves, you are, without a qualm of conscience, preparing to disrupt the education of vulnerable youngsters, for the sake of what in those terms, are mere pennies.

Batt, you and I have met many many times.

I've been a constituent of yours, and covered your political career for twenty years.

We've met socially and had a pint and a laugh together on many an occasion.

When the Taoiseach elevated you to high office last Summer, I thought of my son, and smiled to myself. I figured.. "Batt is one of the good guys. James will be fine while he's in charge.."


How wrong I was. How disappointed I was to be. How my confidence in you was to be shattered.

How you have let me down.


Best personal regards, as always,
PJ