David Higgins

Change has come to Ireland they said. Ireland’s Barack Obama, the man with the plan! And to think I was that naive to believe all the hype.

When George Lee announced his decision to run in Dublin South last year, it was the push that got me involved with politics and with Fine Gael. I was so excited to meet him and I was privileged to help in his campaign. I believed his rhetoric about telling his grandkids that he did something when the country was on its knees. I also believed him when he said he’d run again at the next general election!

But the thing that pisses me off the most is that I trusted him. I trusted him so much that I canvassed relentlessly for him. Last summer I devoted two full weeks of my time to his campaign and I sacrificed much of my summer time for this.

I was even there when they counted his votes in the RDS, all 27,768 of them. No other TD in Dáil Eireann has ever received such a large number of votes. We always say that our TDs don’t have the support of the people, George Lee was the exception. He had our full support but he let us down. He couldn’t stand the heat so he got out of the kitchen.

But f**k him I say.

Now he can tell his kids that politics was too tough and that he left after only 9 months!

I ask anyone to point to a national opposition politician who can have a large impact after only 9 months. Many TDs have to wait 9 years until they are given a frontbench position. Enda Kenny waited 9 Dáil terms and went through 9 general elections before he was elected party leader in 2002. Politics is a slow game for life.

It really shows that George Lee had no patience and would not even settle with a frontbench position!

He says that his reasons are his lack of influence in party policy. Which areas of policy though?? He hasn’t specified one area in which he has had disagreement. I think we’d all like to know what the real problems were! Policies have to have a wide support from the parliamentary party. I think he just couldn’t have things his own way! I know that he’s a man to speak his mind but I was truly shocked when I heard the news today.

I can’t believe the news today
Oh, I can’t close my eyes and make it go away
How long, how long must we sing this song?

It’s important that we know which schools are the best in the country. It’s even more important locally. Parents faced with the choice of multiple schools in their area should not have to rely on anecdotal evidence of where to send their child for the 6 most important years of their upbringing.

Factual evidence and statistics should properly rank these schools and they should be made available to everyone.

Feeder Schools list?

Up to now all Secondary Schools have been measured based on the % of students that the school in question sends to third level education. There are so many flaws with this system and even though my own school made the top ten list this year, it’s still an unfair way of measuring performance of teachers and pupils.

In school (A), all the students go to third level but they’ve all received no more than 300 points and they go to do level 6 courses. School (B) has bright and intelligent students however a large group of lads go abroad to find work and another group of girls take a year off for “self discovery”. The rest of its students all score over 400 points and they go to third level.

You would assume that in any case School (B) would have a higher rank due to its higher achieving students. Instead School (A) tops the league with 100% and School (B) sits at 80%.

This system is fundamentally flawed

It’s also flawed when it’s measured by the % of students going on to “University”. Under the Universities Act 1997 only the following 7 institutions are recognised as a university

• Dublin City University
• University College Cork
• University College Dublin
• National University of Ireland, Galway
• National University of Ireland, Maynooth
• University of Limerick
• Trinity College, Dublin

It’s amazing that a law has enshrined a select few colleges as better than any Institute of Technology or any other college.

The Sunday Times today released their list of feeder schools and it ranks the schools by the % of students in “University”. My school, which was in the top ten based on third level is ranked 137th due to this manipulation of figures. What a stupid system!!

The ST didn’t even get my schools figures right. As I said, we made the Irish Times top ten with 100% going to third level. However the ST says that we only sent 95% of our students. It seems to have left out any students who went abroad, further than the British Isles.

I don’t care where graduates go, it’s still 3rd level education!!

What we need is to measure schools by the average number of points the students get. That would make much more sense. It has its flaws too, but it’s a much better system than what we have at present.

What we shouldn’t do is measure by socio-economic background as this recent list tried to do. High School Rathgar came out on top when they took into account the number of Immigrants in the locality, the unemployment rate and the rate of previous participation in third level education.

Immigrants?? What have they to do with this???????

I know people from Knocklyon who go there and they travel 20 minutes by bus. Measuring the locality of the school tells you nothing when students come from all over the city.

If parents didn’t go to third level then it’s not the case that their kids won’t either! Both my parents have little or no 3rd level education, yet my Dad is a successful manager and my Mom is a fantastic house wife, and she runs music classes part time.

Also I need to point out that my school is much better than most, and it’s a public school. Looks like all you posh South Dubliners spent your money on status rather than on education!!

The Celtic Tiger saw a splurge in easy money. If you wanted a loan, you got it! For a car, boat, house, or TV, it was a free for all. Now the banks are out of cash and everything we bought is worth nothing!

The principal of credit is an admirable one. It allows people to get what they want and pay for it later.

However it does not come without a price. Interest is usually applied on a loan but there can be greater consequences.

For some weird reason Shakespeare knows our world better than we do! He saw these consequences quite clearly and many of his great plays detail them.

In 3rd year we studied The Merchant of Venice. This entire play revolves around a loan. The Jew, Shylock, seeks his revenge over Antonio by causing him to default on his loan. Today in Ireland you get sent to jail for this (in the most extreme of cases), but in those days you were removed of a pound of flesh!

Shylock is like a relentless bank that will stop at nothing to get its money back. At least in those days you knew the forfeit of the loan. During the Celtic Tiger the bank told you nothing and the government said that prosperity would last forever!

Even in Hamlet, which I now study in 5th year, the writing is on the wall that loans are to be avoided at all costs.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.

It ruins marriage, you lose friends, and most importantly you can lose everything you own!!!

This crisis has been the wake up call us Irish need.  China, who’s population save a large % of their income, is much better placed to deal with recessions like these. Thankfully some of us are taking the message seriously.

40% of adults are now debt free

This good news story shows that Irish people are beginning to save, but for how long?

If we see a boom again will personal spending rocket and will the loan cycle begin again?

It needs to be stopped and people need to realise that living within their means is the best way to live.

The Minister for Communications Eamon Ryan is furthering plans to create a new nationwide Postcodes system for Ireland. This week he has opened up the tender process for a contract to implement the new system.

This means that we will say goodbye to the old Dublin Postcode system. It’s something that all of us know and it will be missed in many ways.

D4, a slang term born out of the Celtic Tiger will be no more. I should take this time to note however that the area of Dublin 4 doesn’t even begin to cover the area that would be considered “posh” in South Dublin. I don’t know why this area caught on as being more posh than anywhere else. My own area of D16 is casually termed D4 squared

Another custom this new postcode system will end is the class warfare style reference to the even and odd numbered Dublin Postcodes. The Northside has odd numbers while the Southside holds the even numbers. This led to certain connotations to certain postcodes.

No focking way I’m going into Dublin 15 roysh!!

A New European style Postcode system will end all this and it will make deliveries to our doors much easier. Let’s see someone try and slag off D1467 . I can’t be certain that’s what the new codes will look like but I imagine it will be similar to other countries.

In France they have a simple 5 digit number code like the US zip codes (e.g 90210), while in the UK it is a 6 or 7 character combination of numbers and letters. In Belgium it is only 4 digits and this is probably because they are a small county. I would envisage a similar situation here.

We may see more spam through our doorsteps as businesses have an easy way to address our houses however I don’t mind. I actually enjoy when pizza coupons and menus come through the door!!