Politicians who are effective tend to be unpopular - O'Toole

Designer nappies, technology phobia, school curriculums, mobile cinema and cultural collapse made up the cocktail of debate on "Tradition to Modernity" at the Humbert Summer School in Ballina at the weekend.

The debate opened with a look at the role of politicians. "Effective politicians lead and guide public opinion with creativity and imagination. They tend to be respected but unpopular." Senator Joe O'Toole said. "Ineffective politicians slavishly follow public opinion without either vision or mission. They tend to be re elected, popular but not respected."

He was harsh on those with a technology phobia who remark: "Sure I know nothing about these computers myself". People who feel diminished by technology "probably are", he added. They should "know it, face up to it and do something about it".

Mr Denis O'Brien of ESAT Digiphone said the new century would demand three distinct changes modernising the school curriculum, dismantling "statism" in the economy and providing greater incentives to risk taking in every aspect of economic life.

He criticised Ireland's policy of attracting multinationals when "it is far better to have 10 enterprises employing 15 people than one employing 200, from a risk point of view".

Ms Kathleen O'Callaghan, fashion editor of the Irish Independent, said that fashion was often fobbed off as frivolous but "it holds an accurate looking glass to the face of society".

Booming 1990s Ireland marked the arrival of the individual and "the triumphant ego who knows how to work the system", she said. "What's next Armani nappies for babies?"

David Alvey of the Campaign to Separate Church and State said there had been momentous cultural upheaval, with changes in attitude to the Catholic Church and its "fortifications", the education system, hospitals and orphanages, strict sexual mores and cultural uniformity.

He warned that if Irish society did nothing, "the force of inertia will push us into greater dependence on the culture of Anglo America, a process that is already well advanced". This represented possible "cultural collapse".

The chairwoman of the session and of the Film Board, Ms Lelia Doolan, spoke of film making in Ireland since the 1980s and the board's plan to have mobile cinema travelling to Border towns in October, with a fully equipped truck that would open into an indoor, 150 seat cinema.

Ms Doolan concluded that "tradition is the sediment which will grow a strong modernity".