Caitriona the Conkerer
It's been a bad tempered afternoon at Stormont. The Alliance's Naomi Long tore strips off the Ulster Unionist Roy Beggs over his alleged duplication of a motion on fuel poverty. The Enterprise Committee chairman Mark Durkan tried to tear the odd strip off the Enterprise Minister Nigel Dodds over the Giants' Causeway Visitor Centre but didn't really succeed.
But the blood boiled most obviously during a bad tempered debate on education. The DUP used the debate to accuse Caitriona Ruane of bias towards Irish language education in the criteria she has sued for keeping schools open. Both sides of the chamber accused each other of "witch hunts" and using children as "political footballs".
The most personal element of the debate came when the DUP MP Iris Robinson asked the Education Minister whether she was abusing the school admissions system by living in the south and sending her own children to a school in the north. Stung by this, Ms Ruane angrily told Mrs Robinson that she should not be bringing her children into the debate.
She confirmed that she was sending her children to a school in Northern Ireland, but unlike those parents recently accused of "grannying", or giving false addresses, she said she had always given her own address in North Louth. Ms Ruane pointed out that many people, like her, lived in the south but paid taxes in the north.
So like Tony Blair before her, Caitriona Ruane now finds her own children's schooling is a matter of political discourse.
Nothing to do with "grannying", but yesterday I bumped into the Education Minister clutching a conker. Was she going to make playing conkers compulsory on the enriched curriculum, I enquired. Sheepishly she admitted that conkers are now against all the current health and safety guidelines for schools. But perhaps she and Iris could settle their differences with a pair of old chestnuts. Although the IICD would have to verify that neither projectile had been baked or soaked in vinegar.
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Caitriona Ruane needs to face up to the rsality of partition. If she wishes the state in NI to fund her children's education then she should live in this part of 'the North of Ireland'. COMMENT EDITED
The education of any of the ministers children should not be up for debate. the kids have done nothing wrong. if it came to the crunch, it could lead to Mrs Ruanes kid(s) being taken out of a school, away from their friends etc. that isn't fair. How about asking minsters how many employ their own kids (who are worldly wise enough to fend for themselves) in their constituency/party offices?
The whole debate over education is a tiresome one regarding the DUP vs Sinn Fein. Any such arguments from the DUP over the current direction of that department must be immediately negated based on the fact that they as a party refused to take up the ministry and its reform challenges.
The DUP may wish to be seen to be embroiled in panto-style hair-pulling if you like, but the core issue remains that unionists have left this ministry twice for other parties to deal with.
The DUP have left health and education and arguably they deserve all that comes at them for they should have secured such vital ministeries in an attempt to quell concerns over Irish-medium and integrated education.
Alas, both can now begin to flourish with departmental assistance (sigh of relief)!
I find this 'debate' perplexing and to be honest not really a debate at all. A debate would imply a constructive outcome, what we have here is grandstanding.
First of all I do not believe Mrs Ruane should be education minister simply because I doubt she understands and is genuinely concerned with sensitivities that exist across the whole community. I wonder what her views are concerning key Grammar schools in Belfast?
What we need is a group of external experts who know something about education systems across the globe putting forward a serious of options for informed debate. That way the political football we are getting will be seen for what it is and our kids might actually get an education based on what is best for them and not the politicians.
Where is the content Ruane?
I'm confused. Sorry if I'm missing the point or being naive, but how come she lives in the South and pays taxes in the North?
Surely the Irish govt has something to say about that-shouldn't she be paying rates or something there to pay for the infrastructure? If so how can she pay taxes in both?
Not to mention how has she managed to be a minister-or is that an EU thing?
How do her constituents feel being represented by someone who doesn't live in the same country? Although I suppose some of them might not feel it was another country, so no problem there.
Indignant unionists please remember - these people tried (or fully supported those who tried) to blow the border, and anybody who supported it, to smithereens.
They killed hundreds of people. Men, women, children, locals, foreigners, protestants, catholics, atheists. You name it, they killed it.
All this to get rid of the border.
Because they were up against mainly decent people (that's everybody except the loyalist paramilitaries) they didn't succeed.
All they can do now is try to make the border a bit fuzzier than it was in 1969. And guess what? They aren't succeeding at that either. This grannying thing doesn't seem to be a new phenomenon. People living near the border and working on the other side certainly isn't a new thing. Sinn Fein happily ignoring reality is definitely not a new thing.
What most unionists need to realise is THE SHINNERS DIDN'T WIN!!! There is no need to bleat and whine about silly little things like what language they speak up the Falls (whatever they want) or what school Donegal parents get their children into (the best one they can).