Teaching Maths

Apparently, our Minister for Education, Ruairi Quinn, can't find out how many teachers there are in our secondary schools who teach maths while holding no qualification in mathematics. Does he not have a database somewhere with the email address (or even postal address) of each principal in each school? And can someone in the department of education not send an email to all these principals asking them for this information by the end of the week? Really, how hard can it be?

Well, I just did a search for "list of secondary schools in Ireland" in Google, and I found on the Department of Education website a page that holds a spreadsheet of all secondary schools, with the name of the principals and their phone numbers! There are only just over a thousand schools listed. A couple of junior staff in the department could start ringing them - a ten-minute phone call is all it would take, surely. So that would be 48 schools contacted a day if one person was to do it. If he allocated 5 members of staff in the department to make these calls, he would have the information in just over 4 days, say 5 to allow for cigarette breaks in their 8-hour day.

Just do the maths, Minister, and stop looking for excuses! It's not rocket science!

Bord Gais buys hundreds of expensive office chairs

OK, I'm classifying this one under "Cute Hoorism". Price increases for gas were announced only a few weeks ago, and now it transpires that Bord Gais has just taken delivery of hundreds of expensive office chairs, the kind that in most places would only go to the CEO. Well, apparently, Bord Gais has 380 employees that will now be sitting in these beautifully-designed chairs. While we all have to turn our thermostats down this winter in order to save on our huge gas bills! Different planet they live on, quite clearly!

Bus times

We got the Dun Laoghaire Rathdown magazine in the post the other day. In it was an article about the new bus stops' displays that show real-time information (when is the next bus due at this stop). The article also mentioned that even for stops without the new fancy displays, you could go to the rtpi.ie website and find out the times - very handy in cases where there is only one bus an hour and you don't want to be standing in the cold for too long. So, we checked it out straight away. But.... it doesn't work. The links just give the current time and "No departures found". I wonder how much the County Council have paid for this and if there is a clause in the contract in case the system doesn't work!

Former sports broadcaster Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh has confirmed his interest in running for the presidency


Ah please, what a joke! #1, he's in his eighties. #2, he's a sports broadcaster!


The fact that some political parties have approached him shows just how desperate they are to block the existing candidates.


The scary thing, again, is that he could well win.

Italy

Read an article in Newsweek recently about Italy. It's 10 times worse than Ireland - 4 layers of government, thousands of cars for ministers and other politicians, the politicians haven't taken one single pay cut, a fully-functional black economy that's depriving the State of essential revenue, ... The list goes on and on. It makes Ireland look good!

No decent candidate for President

I think it's really sad that we don't have a single decent candidate for the presidency. And I'm glad that Gay Byrne has decided not to run - he's an entertainer and a TV personality, not president-material. And yet, I think he stood out more than the other candidates. The only other one I can name, by the way is Gay Mitchell. Who else is running? Now let's hope Dana doesn't decide to put her name forward again!

Overseas aid

I've heard that we're giving away in the region of € 700 million in overseas aid annually. Very commendable... Except we're bankrupt, we're receiving aid from Europe and the IMF, we're cutting back services for carers. We really can't afford this. On top of that, apparently, the aid we give is in the form of cash that goes straight to the government coffers of  the receiving country, governments that are sometimes corrupt (the president of Malawi just spent 12 million on a private jet!). My opinion is that we should revise where we send that money, and if we're going to spend it, at least have full control on what is done with it - send Irish plumbers and carpenters to build houses and hospitals in Africa maybe? Otherwise, I would rather that money is spent to help people who need it in Ireland.