Teacher's Pet

An insider's guide to education.

The success of Dublin City University in securing the Charles Haughey papers represents a great coup for its president Ferdinand von Prondzynski.

It had been assumed that the Haughey collection would be housed in his alma mater out in UCD. But Belfield never came calling during Haughey's final days.

So Ferdinand found he was pushing something of an open door when he visited Haughey in Kinsealy during those final days. The Ballymun Road/Collins Avenue location may also have been a trump card.

Haughey may have famously traced his ancestors to every county in Ireland - at election time - but, clearly, he was a Dub and a northsider at heart. All very good news for DCU.

Is there some frisson in the air between the Department of Education and Fingal County Council?

Fingal got a rough press during the Balbriggan school crisis in September; its planners were blamed by the INTO and others for allowing so many families into the area without making any provision for schools.

A wounded council recently hosted a good lunch for the hacks and revealed how it plans to is to build up to 30 new schools over the next three years in a joint "fast -track" partnership with the Department of Education. The plan is that the two partners would team up to acquire sites, clear planning etc.

The story generated plenty of good press for Fingal - but did someone forget to tell the Department for Schools and Teachers, as it has been called?

Let's just say some senior figures in Marlborough Street may be crossing Fingal off the Christmas card list!

The seven university presidents are bracing themselves for some bad news in the forthcoming Budget.

The Department signalled recently that while funding will increase marginally, this may not be enough to keep pace with increasing costs, meaning an effective cut.

It is all bad news, especially for the likes of UCC and UCD who are already juggling substantial budget deficits. Will the universities have to sell off more of their vast land banks?

Already, some colleges are bracing themselves for an effective recruitment ban next year.

The hope is that all of this is part of a softening up process and that the Budget will not be as bad as feared.

But there is a sense of foreboding around many of the colleges this November - on a scale which has not been seen for a decade and more.

E-mail us, in confidence, at teacherspet@irish-times.ie