Daniel bounds into the lions' den

STAFFROOM: Election fever has hit the staffroom.

Posters adorn both sides of the entrance to the school. Creative students have tried to enhance the faces of local candidates. It is amazing what a moustache here, flowing locks on a baldy head there, and subtle changes to the message, can be achieved by a graffiti artist.

It took some courage for the local candidate to arrive in the staffroom during the eleven o'clock break. It helped that he was a past pupil. The principal gave him five minutes to make his point.

"We, as a party, will honour whatever comes out of the benchmarking process," he proffers, thinking he is on the right track.

"What benchmarking?" queries Tom, who hates to have the eleven o'clock break disturbed by anyone except the principal, announcing a half-day.

"What about our 30 per cent?" interjects Maura, who as school steward feels she has to get in her tuppenceworth.

"Our party has always looked after the teachers and we are not going to renege on them now," came the response from a man who was fast realising that it wasn't such a good idea after all to come to the lions' den.

"Not a bit surprised he went into politics - I could never get him to shut up when I had him in my class," muttered PJ.

The staffroom is a mixed bag of political views. There are older folk who vote Fianna Fáil because they believe that since the time John Wilson was Minister they were always "looked after". Others are not so ready to nail their colours to the mast.

The Easter conferences have left their mark of disillusionment, frustration and lack of confidence in the future.

All eyes are on the formation of a new cabinet when someone with a vision for Irish education will take over at the helm, pay the teachers and then get on with giving them an education system second to none.