Inside the programme for government

Sir, – The Irish education system employs 16,000 SNAs looking after, nurturing encouraging the most vulnerable and marginalised students.

Yet we merit only one mention in the programme for government.

It speaks of “continued investment”. Surely this is a misprint! Or a very unfortunate joke. – Yours, etc,

KATHY SCALLY,

READ SOME MORE

Cork.

Sir, – To anyone who has read the programme for government it will be obvious that the document was designed so that it would be passed by party grassroots members. The document’s vagueness is particularly striking — they had 20 weeks to come up with something and the greatest compilation of buzzwords they could muster up was “new green deal”. This really is amateur stuff!

When one searches the document for the word “examine”, 68 results are returned. The incoming government will “examine” a lot of things, it will “look into” things. It will, for example, “explore innovative ways of improving our water infrastructure and reducing consumption”. We already have the Water Advisory Board which criticises Irish Water and comes up with improvement solutions, and it is saying that 43 per cent of Ireland’s water is being lost through leaks. I contend that we need a plumber, not an advisory board to advise the existing advisory board!

The word “review” appears a total of 127 times in the document. On page 14, under the heading “immediate actions” we are told that they intend to review the Irish economy. . .

Do we really want to trust the hands that wrote those words with the running of this country? – Yours, etc,

LUKE SILKE,

Tuam, Co Galway.

Sir, – One of the missing casualties in the proposed programme for government is the Occupied Territories Bill. It doesn’t augur well for a future government if ethical principles can be so easily jettisoned in the pursuit of political power. – Yours, etc,

BRENDAN BUTLER,

Malahide, Co Dublin.

ir, – On behalf of the over 38,000 students attending Edmund Rice schools across Ireland, we would like to warmly welcome the commitment in the new programme for government to abolish the current system of direct provision in the lifetime of the next government.

Over two years ago, as part of our network-wide social justice advocacy programme, many of our students heard the heart-breaking accounts and at the same time stories of huge resilience from fellow students living in direct provision. Shocked and upset at a direct provision system that denied their friends privacy, dignity and most of all the chance to dream about a better future, the students decided to campaign against the current damaging system and to advocate for a complete overhaul of the current practices. This campaign culminated with the submission by the Edmund Rice schools of an oral statement to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.

Students worked with their teachers to help develop a position paper called “Futures on Hold” in which they called for a review of the current system, an interim measure where no person, and particularly children and young people could spend more than six months in any form of State containment, and a complete overhaul of the current for-profit model for one that would be instead based on a compassionate, not-for-profit and pastoral system of welcome and care.

Reading the programme for government, the students can be proud that the prospective new government has listened to them and has taken note of the more caring and more equal vision that our wonderful next generation has for Ireland.

We hope that the new government will respond to their vision with meaningful action. – Yours, etc,

GERRY BENNETT,

CEO,

Edmund Rice Schools Trust,

Blackrock, Co Dublin.

Sir, – How about “Bikes and hikes” to replace “Mercs and perks” ? – Yours, etc,

BRIAN MURPHY,

Dublin 18.

Sir, – I note, in the 139-page programme of ambitions listed in the new troika’s programme for government, a desire to introduce widespread use of public drinking water fountains.

Parish pump politics, perhaps? – Yours, etc,

DAVID DORAN,

Bagenalstown,

Co Carlow.

Sir, – I see that some are surprised Green Party TD Neasa Hourigan is failing to back a deal she helped negotiate (“Green Party TD has ‘considerable’ concerns over economic plan in government deal”, June 17th). Didn’t Robert Barton set the Irish political precedent for this during the Treaty negotiations in 1922? – Yours, etc,

GERARD MADDEN,

Ballinasloe, Co Galway.