Teacher's Pet

An insider's guide to education

Who will be the next Minister for Education? As Mary Hanafin gets ready to depart from Marlborough Street in the summer, the thoughts of some ambitious politicians are already turning to this. With The Irish Times opinion poll showing the FF/PD coalition poised to retain office, the early front runner is Brian Lenihan, the current Minister for Children. Lenihan, like Hanafin, is a terrific media performer. The key issue here may be his relationship with Bertie Ahern - the Taoiseach has not always appreciated Lenihan's capacity to secure votes for the wider Fianna Fáil family in his constituency.

Lenihan would slot well into education. It is an ideal brief for a young, dynamic and ambitious minister, as Hanafin and Noel Dempsey have illustrated. The last thing education needs is an old fashioned politician near the end of the road. But it might be too early for the Coalition to count chickens. Labour's impressive Jan O'Sullivan or Fine Gael's Olwyn Enright could still take the job.

We love the (surely apocryphal) story of one student who impressed the Jesuits by telling the priest his second name was Iggy. After Ignatious Loyola? inquired the priest. No, Iggy Pop, my rock hero, answered the young man. Cheeky!

Is Mary Hanafin about to fund another fee-paying school in her constituency? St Andrew's College in Booterstown, Co Dublin, one of the most prestigious schools in the State, is seeking building funds. Hanafin survived a minor squabble when she funded CBC Monkstown - also in her constituency - last year. But she has still to make a decision on St Andrew's. Our bet? Expect those funds to be released shortly before the election!

Other betting advice. . . Don't place any money on an internal candidate winning the battle to succeed Gerry Wrixon in UCC. Already, the anti- Wrixonites are sharpening their knives, if an internal candidate emerges. They will argue that the whole recruitment process is unfair and invalid - unless the successful candidate is a known anti-Wrixonite. And that's unlikely. In all the circumstances, the college may take the safest option. Now, where did we put that UK academic directory?