Sir, - It is years since I felt for anyone the contempt I feel now for the Department of Education and the Dublin papers' "education correspondents".
All through the ASTI dispute they have worked strenuously to split the ASTI and undermine the original public support for the union. Now they have gleefully divided pupils from teachers instead of directing the pupils' understandable wrath against the real splitters and intransigents, the Government which (when not abroad) has persistently followed the modern Fianna Fail line of standardising the ordinary citizenry into un-uniformed brownshirts.
The unhappy teacher-pupil split will take long to heal, but angry pupils will eventually realise that they have been duped by the Government, their real enemy.
Just as the British have cunningly renamed their War Office the "Ministry of Defence" our Government is straitjacketing people into a spurious "partnership for Peace and Prosperity" patently designed to bolster the scandalous divide between poor and well-off and to tempt the nicely off trade union leaders into lengthy "negotiations", instead of a Larkinite campaign to do something to narrow the gap.
Many years ago, when out of a job, I applied for and got a teaching post. This began a long period of almost idyllic existence in schools sensibly managed by people who left school management as much as possible to the teachers, who shared it as far as possible with the pupils. I have over 2,500 letters from people I used to teach, and they still come. The only dark cloud in teaching then was the arrogance and ignorance of the Department, on which I could write pages.
It was only the first ASTI strike in the 1970s that won for teachers any recognition for special qualifications. By the time this came, though in perfect health, I was nearing compulsory retirement. I asked the Department not, of course, to pay me 20 years' back money, just to take those years into account when calculating my pension. I was told that would be a "dangerous precedent" and shown the door.
As a result, I shall have to get to 2006 and 95 years of age before my pension can bring me just the sum Mr Ahern will get this year as an addition to his already inflated salary. - Yours, etc.,
John De Courcy Ireland, Ph.D, LL.D., Grosvenor Terrace, Dalkey, Co Dublin.