Kildare North by-election candidates went back to the classroom yesterday, writes Mark Hennessy.
With its classrooms neatly tended, corridors freshly-painted by parents, the all-girl Scoil Chlochair Coca Naofa in Kilcock, Co Kildare, is a school that puts its best face on for the world.
Yesterday, the primary school pupils, including four Nigerians who had never seen snow before, happily threw snowballs after the school bell rang, with just the occasional tear.
However, there are problems ahead if the Department of Education and Science goes ahead with proposals to change the rules governing special education.
Currently, Scoil Coca Naofa, which has 250 pupils, has two resource teachers and three-quarters of the working week of a learning support teacher.
Under a circular entitled 09/04 already published by the Department of Education, however, the school, led by its principal, Ms Breda Fay, could be hit, as could hundreds of others around the country.
"Those rules would mean that we would get 1.2 learning support teachers and we would have to apply for resource teachers.
"We figure we would be down about a teacher," Ms Fay told The Irish Times yesterday.
Speaking to most of the Kildare North candidates in the school's staffroom yesterday, resource teacher, Caitríona O'Donoghue outlined the daily routine of the special needs staff.
Sixteen children in the school, who have been approved by the Department, are getting special help in areas ranging from reading and writing, behaviour, concentration skills.
"We serve different needs for different children. Every day is different," said Ms O'Donoghue, who is fiercely proud of the school's record in the area.
Since she has taken over in Education, the Minister, Ms Hanafin has said that the 09/04 circular is being "reviewed", though no final decisions have yet been made.
For both teachers and parents in the Kilcock school, however, this is not enough.
"We want it withdrawn, not reviewed," declared teacher, Ms Anne McCabe.
"We started this programme four years ago. Whole classes have benefited. It really has been brilliant," she told candidates, including Labour's Mr Paddy MacNamara, Fine Gael's Mr Darren Scully and Independent Cllr Catherine Murphy, but the Green Party's Cllr J.J. Power, Progressive Democrats Senator Kate Walsh and Fianna Fáil Cllr Áine Brady were unable to attend, though the latter, accompanied by the Minister, met the principal last Saturday.
"If this is taken away from us," Ms McCabe continued, "it will have knock-on effects. The learning support classes will be overloaded, becoming 1:10 rather than 1:4. It will take time away from average pupils, while it is already a struggle to meet the needs of gifted children."
Board of management member, Sister Marie Ryan was blunt: "This is something that is working very, very well. It would be a crime to see it change."
Labour's Mr MacNamara, a lecturer in engineering in Bolton Street College in Dublin, sympathised as a fellow professional: "Sometimes I have 15 students in my classes. It is hard to believe that you have classes of 30."
Equally speaking from her own experience on the ground, Ms Murphy said: "This causes extraordinary pressures at home. It isn't just one child. It is the whole house."
With a four-month-old baby, Fine Gael's Mr Scully's thoughts drifted to the future as the thoughts of new fathers often do.
"I don't want my children to experience the problems that children of today are experiencing. We are talking about the future of the nation," he said.
Faced with such common agreement, Labour's existing Kildare North TD, Mr Emmet Stagg could not resist throwing a pebble in the mix, pointing to the absence of the Government candidates.
"The people who have the power and the money are not here.
"You are dealing with the Opposition here and we are ready to help. But you need to convince the people who don't bother to turn up," he declared.
Meath
Sirena Campbell (PD)
Shane Cassells (FF)
Dominic Hannigan (Lab)
Shane McEntee (FG)
Fergal O'Byrne (Green)
Liam ÓGógáin (Non Party)
Joe Reilly (SF)
Kildare North
Áine Brady (FF)
Gerry Browne (Non Party)
Paddy MacNamara (Lab)
Catherine Murphy (Non Party)
Seanán Ó Coistín (Non Party)
J.J. Power (Green)
Darren Scully (FG)
Kate Walsh (PD)