Sunday, October 29, 2006

Detention for the Minister

I love Brenda Power. Okay, love is a little strong seeing as I've never met the woman and am unlikely to. And, when I hear her on the radio something about her voice puts me off. But, when I read her columns on Sundays, ahhh …

Today she punishes Minister Hanafin for failing to do her homework. The whole column is worth reading, but I figure I can't quote the whole thing here. So, here are some snippets.
If it wasn’t for the students, their pesky parents, their inconvenient lives, their outlandish expectations and their utterly selfish residential preferences, we’d be able to enjoy the education system that is within the power of the education minister to provide.

If only we arranged our communities to yield neat homogenous class sizes across the country then the problem of overcrowded schools, for a start, could be solved overnight.

If only we didn’t allow the trivial distractions of work and mortgages and commuting distances to influence our life choices, we’d be far more considerate consumers of the education system.

… Despite not having access to the minister’s private intelligence on this matter I very much doubt that families moved to Newbridge because they fancied a superior quality of bathroom decoration. I doubt they even did it with the pig-headed intention of completely and freakishly derailing the minister's carefully drafted projections, although this is what she clearly suspects.

And to suggest, as Hanafin did, that the families moving to Kildare are just well-heeled flibbertigibbets, trampling all over the local infrastructure on a passing design whim, is hugely invidious and unhelpful.