Teacher's Pet

An insider's guide to education

Is Mary Hanafin now regretting her very public pre-election declaration that she wanted to stay in Education?

Up to last summer, Hanafin had enjoyed a hugely successful run in Education. The Opposition team of Olwyn Enright and Jan O'Sullivan scarcely landed a blow, while the teachers, the media and the punters showered her with accolades.

Since then, Hanafin has been less sure-footed. The water-rates debacle was bad enough. But Mary O'Rourke's stinging attack on the Department's record on services for autistic children spawned the worst possible publicity for the Minister. It also provided still more ammunition for the energetic new Opposition team of Brian Hayes and Ruairi Quinn - both formidable foes.

Hanafin now has the unenviable task of juggling the needs of autistic children and their parents without alienating the powerful INTO, which is working to ensure that qualified primary teachers take the lead role in special needs education.

Her challenge over the coming months will be to regain some lost ground especially at next month's teacher conferences. But with no money in the kitty and the Opposition scenting blood this may not be easy. That said, Hanafin has always said that she likes being tested and challenged. But the next few months will be critical.

A changing of the guard is underway at the HQ of the Teachers' Union of Ireland out in leafy Rathgar, Dublin. In the next fortnight, Jim Dorney will step down as general secretary after an astonishing 25 years at the helm. Dorney says he is off to "smell the roses".

His successor, the wily and shrewd Peter McMenamin, is preparing for a fresh challenge at 60 plus - but first he may have to quell some tensions in the ranks. The race to succeed Dorney was seen as a shoot-out between his two clever young lieutenants, Declan Glynn and John McGabhainn. So both are nursing wounds.

Once he settles into the chair, McMenamin's first task will be to choose his new deputy general secretary - a sensitive task given recent events.

It is being billed as a hugely important review, so how come the launch of the planned framework document for third-level has been so low-key?

To date bits and scraps of information about the whole exercise have dribbled out of the Department and the Higher Education Authority - but few seem to be be able to speak with any great authority on the subject.

Now comes news of some tension within the Department of Education about what exactly the review should achieve and how wide ranging it should be.

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