IPPN

Published: 02 November 2008

Source : Sunday Tribune

Picture the scene. A middle-aged man is sitting in a psychiatrist's room, emptying out all his bad stuff to the shrink. The year is 2048. The man is stuck in a moment, unable to move on with his life because of a horrendous experience visited on him in childhood.

Suddenly, he breaks down as he finally hits on the root of all his problems.

"There were 28 of us," he cries. "In my junior infants' class, there were 28 of us when there was supposed to be only be 27."

So it goes in the world of hyperbole. Last Wednesday on Morning Ireland, Labour's Ruairí Quinn had this to say about how the proposed increase in class sizes will affect four-year-olds: "This is going to be a wound they carry for the rest of their lives."

As the nation comes to grips with a new, dark reality, demented rhetoric is the order of the day, particularly wherever "the vulnerable" are discussed.

"We are determined to protect the most vulnerable in our society and we will redirect resources to that end," Brian Lenihan announced in his budget speech. Cue the migration of huge tracts of the populace to the land of the vulnerable.

Everybody is vulnerable, including every single elderly person and every child. The 70-year-old millionaire in rude health is as vulnerable as the 80-year-old on a non-contributory pension, suffering from chronic emphysema. The boy attending a top fee-paying school is as vulnerable as the Traveller girl who accesses running water only when attending school.

Farmers have never been as vulnerable as they are now, particularly the bigger ones who hoovered up the lion's share in EU grants. Bankers are vulnerable, in danger of choking on their own greed. Developers, well, with another one biting the dust each week, who could be more vulnerable? Their representative, Tommy Parlon, was so good at articulating their vulnerability that Lenihan sorted them out in the budget with a scheme for first-time buyers which was really designed to prop up developers.

Vulnerability is all the rage ; and why wouldn't it be when the only alternative is to endure pain. The result of all this cant is that the status of the really vulnerable is being devalued. How can the plight of the poor, the sick, those with special needs be properly heard above the din? And what about the new really vulnerable, people who are losing their jobs each day, and the families they support?

The scramble to be vulnerable comes after a decade in which the government set a tone reassuring everybody who mattered that they would be taken care of, that it was their right to get everything they wanted. The manner of governing under Bertie Ahern was to keep all interest groups happy, often at the cost of tackling the real problems in society.

Developers got tax breaks that were not justified. Banks were permitted to loan and profit under poor regulation, permitting them to pump smoke onto the mirrors of debt. Powerful lobby groups, like public sector unions and business interests, got what they wanted to keep the show on the road. Everybody who mattered was kept happy, and if any money was left over, it was fired in an unstructured way at the real problems.

The furore over education cuts ; some but not all of which are genuinely
shocking ; is a case in point. For the last week, teachers have been referring exclusively to the impact on children, all of whom are apparently vulnerable. Teachers themselves are far from vulnerable in the current climate.

During the boom years, teachers were well taken care of. Benchmarking, the "ATM machine" as described by Joe O'Toole, lifted their earnings, allegedly to bring them into line with the private sector. Fair enough, teaching is an important business that should be designed to attract bright recruits. Now, however, private sector jobs are being tossed on the waves of the economy and teachers shelter in a protected harbour.

While they did just fine in the boom, education didn't prosper. Class sizes remained high. A proper school-building programme was long-fingered. Disadvantage and special needs were tackled in a haphazard manner.

Couldn't teachers now share the pain in order to protect the vulnerable? How about advocating a pay freeze for middle-income earners in the public sector, which might free up money to reduce class sizes, or pay for much needed books?

Would it be too much to ask teachers in secondary schools to supervise a class whose teacher is away on school business? There is plenty of pain to go around.

Ultimately, teachers are no different to any other interest group with muscle. After a decade in which they were schooled to demand and expect, they are not now willing to take any pain.

Could you really blame them? Through the years of misrule, a tone of self-interest was fostered by the very government which is now beseeching us to locate a chord of inner patriotism. It's no wonder that everybody is feeling vulnerable.

November 2, 2008