Labour education minister Jan O’Sullivan
Labour education minister Jan O’Sullivan spoke to the Irish Independent yesterday about Catholic schools giving preference to baptised children.
She said:
“I don’t think anyone should feel forced to baptise their children, if it is not something that they want. And I don’t think the church want that either.”
The paper reports that her comments prompted the following responses from her Fine Gael colleagues.
“We need to focus on the economy and job creation in the run-up to the election instead of coming up with ideas that are going to ruffle feathers in parts of the Government.”
– Fine Gael Junior Agriculture Minister Tom Hayes
“From an election point of view, now is not the time to have a debate you can’t win because you are not going to make everyone happy by doing it.”
– Fine Gael Cork North West TD Aine Collins
“The problem with enrolment in my constituency relates to bricks and mortar not the signs hanging over the door.”
– Fine Gael Dublin North TD Alan Farrell
There you go now.
FG TDs attack O’Sullivan for criticism over school baptism (Irish Independent)
Previously: Educate And Party Together
Pic: Laura Hutton/Rollingnews.ie
If they ignore it it goes away! Just like austerity and irish water!
Bono on the Leaving Cert English paper did not attract the same level of debate in the Irish media…schade.
FG is still a party in the grasp of the most conservative elements of our society, policies based on moral outlook as opposed to human necessity, keenly backed up by the insulated classes making sure nobody wrecks their featherbed.
“From an election point of view, now is not the time to have a debate you can’t win because you are not going to make everyone happy by doing it.”
Aine Collins… all about the people all the time and never about just getting re-elected. You go Collins ya muppet!
Anything difficult is not worth doing, “from an election point of view.”
I think we have the beginning of a meme here..
We *need* to get it into our heads that when something is 100% publicly funded, it is a public institution. It may be a public institution run by catholics, but when are we going to grow some balls and tell these clerics that he who pays the piper calls the tune? We’ve bought these schools outright a thousand times over.
It’s so infuriating, after all they’ve done, after all the money they’ve cost us, the lives destroyed that elected brain-donors still feel it’s controversial to suggest that all taxpayers should get a fair shake at entry to the institutions we pay for regardless of whether they’ve pledged allegiance to someone’s god?!
+1 Well said.
Damn right !
Testify
That’s it.
Ur d best bbz xxx
cheers hun xxx cudnt do it wirrout me girloz n hunzos lyk u xxx wb xxx hun
It is a bit like the London tube drivers & driverless tubes – the RCC can hold the education system to ransom in the meantime while any transition takes place.
So far as I understand, in mamy case they also own the physical infrastructure – i.e. the school itself.
I shudder to think what sort of government we’d have if these FG gobshites were in power on their own.
Certainly no referendum on marraige equality for a start and no debate on repeal of the 8th amendment either.
Gird your loins for an FG/FF government. One gurning inbred hick set of mindless parishpumpers feeding off the buzz of a twin set of inbred hick mindless parishpumpers.
One way to stop a total right-leaning FG/FF government would be to vote Labour…
A party that plays only to opinion polls will eventually cease to exist.
If that were true it would be the greatest fact in the world. Alas however it is nonsense.
Lib Dems- change in message to appeal to UKIP/Tory vote, a loss in ideology, a party that played to opinion polls = on verge of extinction.
No, it’s a classic case of the smaller party in government being blamed for the sins of the larger.
See also – PDs, Greens, Labour.
‘A cat that plays with his prey will eventually be eaten by a genetically modified SuperMouse’.
Ptolemy
Only in Ireland would speaking out against forced baptisms be considered controversial.