IN THE region of 15,000 teachers, parents and pupils marched down Patrick Street in Cork city over the weekend in protest at planned Government cutbacks in education.
At a noisy demonstration on Saturday they carried placards with the words “Blind as a Batt” and “Batman you are after robbing us”.
They came from as far away as Wexford and called for a Government U-turn on plans to cut substitution cover for sick teachers and increases in the pupil/teacher ratio, among other issues.
Mary O’Sullivan from Barraduff in Killarney, Co Kerry, said she travelled to Cork for the protest in a bid to guarantee the future of her five-year-old son Joshua.
“Where we are in Barraduff the class size is just right and you can see it. There is a nice tidy number and what he has learned in a couple of months in school is unbelievable . . . Once one thing goes it is going to have a knock-on effect on everything because a teacher that now gives time to something outside their remit won’t be able to even do what they are supposed to be doing.
She added there was no point in being vocal when “the battle is lost.”
Meanwhile, Eileen Keady, a teacher at Cloghroe National School described the budget cuts as a “slap in the face” for parents, teachers and pupils.
“We are okay for this year but next year an appointment won’t be made that should be made . . . So we are very upset that any changes are being made and that the Government has gone back on its promise to lower class size. I regard it as a slap in the face that they are going to increase class size rather than lower it,” she said.
“We were going to have a teacher appointed to teach the foreign language children and now it won’t go ahead. If you can’t understand what is being said how can you learn?”
Mother-of-three Diane Kelly from Crosshaven, Co Cork, who is the chairwoman of Scoil Bhride Parents Association said she was worried that fundraising money would end up being used to pay for essentials rather than extras such as interactive white boards.
The demonstration was dominated by chants such as: “You say cutback, we say fightback!” and “Fianna Fáil out!” One teacher echoed a successful television advertising campaign with the chant: “School uniform €150, books €100; benefit of an education – priceless!”
Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO) general secretary John Carr said the Government was making children pay for the “recklessness of bankers and developers”. However, Minister for Education Batt O’Keeffe has insisted that the Government has taken tough decisions to help the economy on the road to recovery.
The march was one in a series of protests organised by the INTO, culminating in a national rally in Dublin on December 6th.