Call to delay start of term over road and pupil safety concerns [IrishTimes]
- Published: 04 January 2010
COUNCILLORS IN Monaghan and Kerry have called for extra efforts to ensure the safety of school-going children and their parents during the cold spell.
Monaghan Fianna Fáil politician Robbie Gallagher said the Department of Environment and local authorities should initiate a joint plan which will ensure that all roads are made safer in areas close to primary schools.
Full Story: www.irishtimes.com
State paid out €130m in funding to Travellers [Independent.ie]
- Published: 03 January 2010
The first examination of funding for Traveller groups in several years has revealed that last year the State provided more than €130m for a variety of projects. This is aside from the social welfare and unemployment benefits paid out to the estimated 30,000 Travellers in the country.
Full Story: www.independent.ie
Only 7 of 78 projects actually built [finegael.org]
- Published: 03 January 2010
Last year, Education Minister Batt O’Keffe attempted to garner a huge amount of attention over his announcement that 78 school projects would commence construction in 2009 but information released to Fine Gael Education Spokesman, Brian Hayes TD shows that two-thirds of these have not even begun construction.
Deputy Hayes tabled a Parliamentary Question on the issue with the response showing that less than 10% of school building projects announced have actually been built and that 50 out of the 78 are stuck in planning limbo.
Full Story: www.finegael.org
Pupils to be given lessons on debt [timesonline.co.uk]
- Published: 03 January 2010
They may be steering the country to a record deficit of at least £178 billion, but ministers believe they can educate the next generation about how to avoid the pitfalls of debt.
Schools are to be required to teach children how to spend with restraint, borrow within sensible limits and save prudently.
Full Story: www.timesonline.co.uk
Union revolt will doom our chances of recovery [Independent.ie]
- Published: 03 January 2010
TWO statements this week will put Ireland's chances of economic recovery in sharp definition. One, from Brian Lenihan, the Minister for Finance, will tell us what needs to be done this year if the public finances are to be stabilised and the economy revitalised. The other, from the trade union movement, will tell us how trade union leaders plan to disrupt that recovery with a rolling programme of strikes.
The choice for those on the frontline -- those public sector workers who still have jobs during a recession that has so far seen a quarter of a million people lose theirs -- is relatively simple: are you prepared to back the plan for recovery, or do you side with the shriller voices of the union leadership?
Full Story: http://www.independent.ie
