It’s been a fairly quiet time in the news as everyone waits for Simon Harris to officially announce the election for November 29th but there was time for the media to turn on pesky teachers taking career breaks, as it was revealed there are over 1,000 positions unfilled in primary schools. I wrote an article almost exactly a year ago with why cancelling career breaks will do nothing and I offered some solutions, finishing with:
“The one thing we can’t afford to do is exactly what the government has been doing since 2014 when the issue of teacher shortages was first raised — and that’s to do nothing. However, unfortunately, I think that’s exactly what’s going to happen.”
I expect I’ll be on the radio this time next year saying the same thing.
However, what was surprising to me was that another perennial story that usually comes along in April, hit the media twice in the last fortnight – agnostic/atheist parents trying their best to justify why they are allowing their children make the Communion, which I’m sure I shouldn’t have to remind you is a Catholic ceremony where a child is presented to be in further communion with Jesus Christ. There is nothing else that it celebrates and if one doesn’t believe in the tenets of the Catholic faith, it makes no sense to go through with it. There are several coming of age and spiritual ceremonies that one can have.
First Niamh O’Reilly took to the Journal to ponder why she brings her children to Mass to make them feel unworthy. The second was a podcast clip, which I imagine deliberately chose a clip, where Maia Dunphy claimed that opting out isn’t difficult. I wish she had have told me earlier and it would have saved me a huge amount of bother over the last 15 years! I responded in an X Post here.
I expect I’ll be talking about this in April again when the journalists try to justify their hypocrisy while completely ignoring how it affects other people in the education system. In fairness to them they are only following the sagely advice of one of Ireland’s most famous priests: Fr Fintan Stack of Craggy Island.
“I’ve had my fun and that’s all that matters.”
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