Letters to the Editor: Department must respect decisions from ASTI

Irish Examiner

12-06-2025

As a post-primary teacher, I am writing to express my concern regarding the accelerated timeline of the senior cycle redevelopment programme.
I strongly urge education minister Helen McEntee to pause this acceleration and not to penalise ASTI members who have voted overwhelmingly (68% to 32%, 73% turnout) to reject the senior cycle redevelopment implementation support measures. In a separate ballot, ASTI members also voted 67% to 33% in favour of industrial action if necessary. This is a powerful signal of the profession's genuine and widespread concern.
ASTI's position is based on well-researched and well-documented realities. Many schools, especially Deis and smaller rural schools, currently lack the capacity and resourcing to deliver such wide-ranging changes effectively.
Teachers are being asked to take on significantly increased workload without adequate training, time, or infrastructure.
The risks of insufficient authentication of additional assessment components (AACs), challenges around AI, and inequality of provision are very real and have not been sufficiently addressed.
The department of education's press release outlines several measures, but these do not address the core issues raised by teachers.
Moreover, the decision to accelerate this reform by a full year under Ms McEntee's predecessor has created deep mistrust.
Teachers were not consulted on this change of pace, which is being imposed on a system already under strain. The current approach risks harming the very students it is meant to serve. Science, in particular, is already under-resourced in many schools, and introducing new specifications under these conditions will result in a postcode lottery of educational quality.
The minister needs to: Respect the clear democratic decision of ASTI members; refrain from using the public service agreement to force through measures without consensus; and restore the original timeline to allow genuine consultation and proper preparation across all schools.
The minister stated a commitment to supporting students, but sustainable reform cannot be achieved without bringing teachers along. Rushing ahead risks creating deeper divisions, damaging morale, and ultimately harming educational outcomes.
I appeal to Ms McEntee to act with leadership and wisdom and pause the timeline, re-engage with teachers, and deliver a reform process that will truly serve students, teachers, and the wider system.
Michael McGrath, St Augustine's College, Abbeyside, Dungarvan, Co Waterford
Housewife column hits nail on head
Jennifer Horgan's article 'Being a homemaker is hard, even harder when it's no longer valued' is an excellent and compelling piece of journalism.
As a male clinician who, over the years, has heard countless women say that their roles are unappreciated, I am acutely aware of how challenging being a homemaker is.
I totally get where Ms Horgan is coming from.
I believe she is correct in saying: 'Irish society knowingly exploits women. We need their duties, but just can't mention them.'
I do believe that, for many women, being a homemaker is thankless in that it's never-ending.
It offers no salary and is a profession in which many women sacrifice just about everything in order to provide a home and upkeep for their families.
With more women working outside the home, there is an increased demand for daycare and early pre-schools — which is very exacting and demanding.
Fewer women today are able to stay at home and care for their children as a result of the high cost of living.
However, there are some women who are still able to remain full-time homemakers — thus providing an atmosphere for their families that is seldom seen anymore.
It is my contention that raising children and being a housewife is one of the hardest jobs for any one person.
I find Ms Horgan's summation to be somewhat poignant and heartbreaking yet true when she says: 'As with every type of oppression women endure, we see but we don't see. Such is our way.'
In response to the same, I would like to see society recognise the valuable contributions of our homemakers as their worth is essential for the wellbeing of families and communities.
Homemakers provide the foundation for stable and loving homes, which are crucial for child development and overall societal wellbeing.
John O'Brien, Clonmel, Co Tipperary
Are we a nation of animal lovers?
It's a peculiar fact that the first known attempt to legislate against animal cruelty anywhere in the world was here in Ireland.
In 1635, a law was enacted to criminalise the practice of pulling wool off sheep (as distinct from shearing them) and the equally cruel custom of attaching ploughs to animals' tails.
It has been argued that the law was motivated as much by a desire to raise revenue as by concern for the unfortunate animals, but it's still a milestone. It represented a first tentative step towards humane treatment of animals.
And in the 19th century, Irish MP Richard Martin of Galway founded the world's first animal protection society, as well as campaigning against the 'sports' of bull-baiting and bear-baiting.
With this remarkable record, it's all the more baffling and abhorrent that animal cruelty is so widespread in Ireland today.
Abandoned horses can be found weekly, dead or dying of neglect or ill-treatment, in fields or on roadsides nationwide. An RTÉ report exposed the selling of unwanted racehorses that ended up in the EU food chain, and the merciless flogging of horses in an abattoir.
Livestock raised on Irish farms are sent on long, stressful sea journeys, profit trumping any objections to their sad and lonely plight.
Animal shelters are full to overflowing with dogs and cats, animals that once happily dwelt in homes, only to be ejected from the company of those they adored.
We applaud when efforts are made to reintroduce a long absent species of wildlife, only to read a few weeks or months later that they've been blasted out of the sky or poisoned.
Illegal poaching has worsened over the past five years, with farmers living in fear of hunters who trespass to kill wildlife.
The badger, a shy nocturnal mammal, can end up being snared as part of the bovine TB eradication scheme, if it's lucky enough to have avoided the baiting gangs or the loss of habitat due to building projects. Even as State wildlife rangers struggle to contain poaching, a State licence facilitates the setting of dogs on our supposedly 'protected' native hares.
Hare coursing is almost unknown outside Ireland. The countries that once permitted it have long since consigned it to oblivion, with the exception of Pakistan and Iberia.
And we retain the quintessential British tradition of fox hunting, which Britain has outlawed, so that our wild dogs can still be chased to exhaustion and death for fun.
Despite that promising start back in 1635, I'm afraid we can no longer consider ourselves a nation of animal lovers.
To reclaim our humane status, we need to enforce existing anti-cruelty laws and end the savagery of hare coursing, fox hunting, and badger snaring.
We can be a light to the world; instead of a hell on Earth for the voiceless.
John Fitzgerald, Callan, Co Kilkenny
Cork GAA must act to arrest downward spiral in football
As a lifelong Cork GAA supporter, it is worrying to see the continuing downward spiral at all levels of Gaelic football.
History was created recently with defeat to Kerry at U20 level for the fourth year in a row. Never before has this happened. The minor statistics are even worse.
The senior team continues to flounder in Division 2 of the National Football League with little hope of promotion to Division 1.
The standard of Cork club football is appalling. If we thought the late 1970s or early 1980s at inter-county level was bad, this is a new low masked by a couple of close encounters with the arch enemy, Kerry, in the last few years — not on Saturday, May 31, though.
The question must be asked what if any kind of plans are in place to bring Cork football back to the top level where it should be for a county with the most football clubs in the country.
Finally, let's hope the Cork senior hurlers finally reach the holy grail this year with Liam McCarthy Cup returning after a 20-year absence.
Tom Harrington, Connaught Avenue, Cork