ARTHUR GODSIL
Madam, - I wish to correct a serious and damaging inaccuracy in Miriam Donohoe's article "No marks for idea of drug testing pupils" (The Irish Times, November 15th). Ms Donohoe's indignation is fuelled by the misapprehension that mandatory "random drug testing" is being carried out in our school. This is not, and never has been, the case.
The inaccuracy that underpins Ms Donohoe's article is all the more surprising given that her colleague, Emmet Oliver, gave a full and accurate account of our policy on substance abuse only three days earlier in Tuesday's edition of The Irish Times.
Given the sensitivity of the issue, I consider it only proper that Ms Donohoe should apologise to the students and their parents for the offence and anxiety she has caused by her misrepresentation of the facts. - Yours, etc.,
ARTHUR GODSIL
Headmaster,
St Andrew's College,
Booterstown,
Co. Dublin.
Miriam Donohoe writes: I did not say in my column that St Andrews tested students for drugs as part of a "mandatory" programme. Mr Godsil confirmed to our education correspondent that the school has tested about a dozen students in the last three years where there was "good cause" to think the students were using cannabis. In that context "random" is incorrect, but I was making the point that testing students for drugs is a very serious matter,
and one probably better left to the Garda authorities to handle rather than schools.