An insider's guide to education

• That excellent statement by Labour TD Joan Burton about the scandalous lack of school places in Dublin 15 has touched a very raw nerve in the Department of Education.

Hundreds of kids cannot enrol in junior infants in local schools. Why? Because 10,000 houses were built in the likes of Clonee and its surrounds in recent years. But no one bothered to think about school supply.

Burton has put her finger on a problem which could be a real issue in the next general election - the scandalous lack of planning in the new suburbs around Dublin and elsewhere.

This is an issue which Minister for Education Mary Hanafin will need to address sooner rather than later - and she knows it.

• Lowest turnout in the recent ASTI vote on a return to Ictu? Step forward the Fingal branch, home of low-profile ASTI president Sheila Parsons.

For the record, less than 5 per cent of members bothered to vote. The result? Seven members for Ictu and five against. Now that's what we call democracy in action.

• Preparations are by now well advanced for the Easter round of teacher conferences. The big issues are likely to be the continuing class size scandal at primary level and the discipline crisis at second-level.

You have to admire the scores of delegates from the three teaching unions who will spend several days cooped up in stuffy conference centres, when they could be enjoying the sunshine in Lanzarote or wherever.

There is some loose talk that the conference season might be shifted to the week before Easter, but the teacher unions are not silly. The week after Easter is traditionally the quietest news week of the year, so those teacher talkfests are welcomed by grateful news desks all over the country.

Now, if only there was a hot issue to set the pulse racing . . ..

• The great and the good gathered in Dublin's Mansion House last week to give the new Teaching Council an elegant send off.

We counted some 200 names on the official guestlist. But there was no sign of anyone from Hibernia College, the now well-established college which provides on-line courses for primary teachers.

Is the council operating some kind of exclusion zone for those who are perceived as being outside the education mainstream? Or did the invitation get lost in the post?

• We have all heard of "Dear John" letters, but what about "Dear John, John and Jim?" Yes, this is how Mary Hanafin and her senior officials begin letters to the teaching union bosses, John Carr (INTO), John White (ASTI) and Dr Jim Dorney (TUI)

E-mail us at teacherspet@irish-times.ie