26 July 2001 Edition
Time for action on education
BY MICHAEL PIERSE
230,000 young people in the 26 Counties, that's 23 per cent of the population under 18 years of age, are living, or subsisting, below the poverty line
Educational inequality, and the indifference of the Dublin government to the same, were brought into sharp focus by two major news stories this month. One of them outraged the people of Ireland, the other barely commanded a whimper.
Senator Joe O'Toole was correct when he branded the Supreme Court judgement in the Jamie Sinnott case as ``inhumane, selfish and visionless''. To deny a young autistic man and others in a similar situation the right to receive primary education for as long as it can be of use to them again highlights the 26-County state's long-established policy of ignoring the plight of the disabled until courts at home or in Europe force them to do otherwise.
One of the Supreme Court judges was entirely at odds with his two other colleagues. Chief Justice Keane asserted that the High Court was correct in its landmark ruling that the State was obliged to provide Jamie with a free primary education ``as long as he is capable of benefiting from same''. There was ``no principled basis'', he found, for the cut-off point at 18 years of age, which represented a ``feat of intellectual legerdemain of which I am incapable''.
This case was not just about Jamie Sinnott. The High Court judgement, if upheld, would apply to many more mentally disabled young people, who would in turn seek the educational benefits of the ruling, along with financial compensation for the adjudged injustice. In short, the bill for the Department of Education might run into billions. Far more palatable, then, to weather the storm of public outrage at the Supreme Court ruling with vague promises of `blank cheques' for the disabled, as Education Minister Michael Woods did.
And that brings us to the second, but equally significant news story - the one that didn't provoke the columnists into a flurry of moral indignation. It pertains to another group of disabled young people. Not mentally disabled - by and large - not physically disabled either. The victims of the government's second insult were, of course, Ireland's financially disabled young people - and there's a lot of them out there.
According to the most recent statistics from the Combat Poverty agency, 230,000 young people in the 26 Counties, that's 23% of the population under 18 years of age, are living, or subsisting, below the poverty line. That poverty line is fairly low - only households run on an income of less than half of the average wage qualify as being below the poverty line. Those young people are more likely to suffer from ill-health, drug/alcohol abuse and, most prevalent of all, educational disadvantage.
That educational disadvantage, Minister Woods announced two weeks ago, is to remain the status quo for those empoverished youngsters who might dream of getting a third-level education. Well, he didn't quite put it like that, but the decision to raise the meagre third-level maintainance grant by only 6% can mean little else. The increase amounts to less than £3 per week extra onto the maximum £52 grant.
Just as Jamie Sinnott's mother Kathy was insulted and felt abused at the hands of the Dublin government, students across the 26 Counties, and those who might aspire to break the poverty trap by becoming students, will feel dejected by the government's indifference to their plight.
Arguing that students can survive on £52 per week, living away from home and inclusive of the cost of accommodation, is simply indefensible. Added to this is the fact that it is only the `privileged' few, whose parents receive earnings of less than £5.20 per hour, who are eligible for that grant.
The £3 rise was all the more a shock, coming, as it did, a week after the publication of findings by the governmental Action Group on Third-Level Access that there is a strong link between students' chances of going to college and the financial support available to them.
This year's USI President is a member of Young Fine Gael - a safer pair of careerist hands you won't find. What is needed is a wake-up call for Michael Woods & Co, and with Sinn Féin and other radical parties and campus societies increasing in support, now is the time to do it.
230,000 young people in the 26 Counties, that's 23 per cent of the population under 18 years of age, are living, or subsisting, below the poverty line
Educational inequality, and the indifference of the Dublin government to the same, were brought into sharp focus by two major news stories this month. One of them outraged the people of Ireland, the other barely commanded a whimper.
Senator Joe O'Toole was correct when he branded the Supreme Court judgement in the Jamie Sinnott case as ``inhumane, selfish and visionless''. To deny a young autistic man and others in a similar situation the right to receive primary education for as long as it can be of use to them again highlights the 26-County state's long-established policy of ignoring the plight of the disabled until courts at home or in Europe force them to do otherwise.
One of the Supreme Court judges was entirely at odds with his two other colleagues. Chief Justice Keane asserted that the High Court was correct in its landmark ruling that the State was obliged to provide Jamie with a free primary education ``as long as he is capable of benefiting from same''. There was ``no principled basis'', he found, for the cut-off point at 18 years of age, which represented a ``feat of intellectual legerdemain of which I am incapable''.
This case was not just about Jamie Sinnott. The High Court judgement, if upheld, would apply to many more mentally disabled young people, who would in turn seek the educational benefits of the ruling, along with financial compensation for the adjudged injustice. In short, the bill for the Department of Education might run into billions. Far more palatable, then, to weather the storm of public outrage at the Supreme Court ruling with vague promises of `blank cheques' for the disabled, as Education Minister Michael Woods did.
And that brings us to the second, but equally significant news story - the one that didn't provoke the columnists into a flurry of moral indignation. It pertains to another group of disabled young people. Not mentally disabled - by and large - not physically disabled either. The victims of the government's second insult were, of course, Ireland's financially disabled young people - and there's a lot of them out there.
According to the most recent statistics from the Combat Poverty agency, 230,000 young people in the 26 Counties, that's 23% of the population under 18 years of age, are living, or subsisting, below the poverty line. That poverty line is fairly low - only households run on an income of less than half of the average wage qualify as being below the poverty line. Those young people are more likely to suffer from ill-health, drug/alcohol abuse and, most prevalent of all, educational disadvantage.
That educational disadvantage, Minister Woods announced two weeks ago, is to remain the status quo for those empoverished youngsters who might dream of getting a third-level education. Well, he didn't quite put it like that, but the decision to raise the meagre third-level maintainance grant by only 6% can mean little else. The increase amounts to less than £3 per week extra onto the maximum £52 grant.
Just as Jamie Sinnott's mother Kathy was insulted and felt abused at the hands of the Dublin government, students across the 26 Counties, and those who might aspire to break the poverty trap by becoming students, will feel dejected by the government's indifference to their plight.
Arguing that students can survive on £52 per week, living away from home and inclusive of the cost of accommodation, is simply indefensible. Added to this is the fact that it is only the `privileged' few, whose parents receive earnings of less than £5.20 per hour, who are eligible for that grant.
The £3 rise was all the more a shock, coming, as it did, a week after the publication of findings by the governmental Action Group on Third-Level Access that there is a strong link between students' chances of going to college and the financial support available to them.
This year's USI President is a member of Young Fine Gael - a safer pair of careerist hands you won't find. What is needed is a wake-up call for Michael Woods & Co, and with Sinn Féin and other radical parties and campus societies increasing in support, now is the time to do it.