Greens show politics can be child's play

WHILE Bertie wouldn't play with John, and John was calling Bertie a coward, the Greens were getting down to some serious play.

There was Councillor John Gormley waist deep in a sea of brightly coloured plastic balls. And beside him in the play centre of St Stephen's Green shopping centre was another Green candidate, John Goodwillie, also swimming merrily.

The occasion was a Greens press conference, called to announce its charter for children's rights. The party is calling for tax deductions for parents in respect of child day care and the establishment of child care bureaux within the health boards.

"We have moved away from including children in our everyday lives," the charter declares. So the Greens came up with the idea of throwing a few adults into a children's world. Half a dozen rosette wearing adults invaded the playpen, and the children ran for cover.

Children, sometimes because they make noise or can't sit still, are left at home or with minders instead of being encouraged to participate in important learning experiences like shopping, or knowing where their parents work," according to the charter.

Whatever about shopping being an important learning experience, four month old Isobel Cooney was learning all about her mother's work yesterday. Councillor Donna Cooney, Green candidate in Dublin North East, nestled her daughter under her arm as she told us how the high cost of child care was the reason why Ireland has the lowest rate of women in the workforce in the EU.

But by the time Ms Cooney started telling us that child care "gives deprived children a head start", Isobel had had enough of her mother's workplace. A political platform, apparently, is no place for petulance, even from a child. Isobel's father, David, intervened swiftly to rescue the situation, and his daughter.

Mr Gormley said it was a "disgrace" that Ireland had no comprehensive policy on child care. The Greens would be insisting on such a strategy as a condition for participating in government, he said.

Like every press conference in this campaign, this one opened with some policy, followed by a potshot at the opposition. So Mr Gormley lambasted the PDs for their "ill judged" intervention on single mothers.

All that was left was the stunt. As The Irish Times made its exit, six grown adults were floundering in a sea of plastic balls, putting nonexistent juggling skills to the test for the benefit of the photographers. Who said politics isn't child's play?