Letters to the Editor: Poll may help 'puzzled' minister
Parents of autistic children and special needs are to hold another protest march on the lack of services, similar to when they marched from the Cork Opera House to the offices of the HSC in Blackpool, Cork. Picture: Dan Linehan
Regarding Elaine Loughlinâs article âSchools may be compelled to open special classes, says ministerâ (March 3). Itâs really important that this issue is covered in the media.
However, I felt a need to respond to the disabilities ministerâs claim of being âfiercely puzzledâ at the reluctance of schools.
Is there still significant discrimination and a lack of training and understanding of the educational needs of neurodivergent children? Absolutely.
However, the Department of Education does not support schools appropriately to meet the needs of the children they are educating.
This, coupled with the HSE not resourcing Camhs or CDNT teams to appropriately support children and families, leaves schools in the difficult position of decision to open classes knowing that the needs of the children will not be met. And yet itâs other institutions or government departments, as well as the school, its students, and teachers, who will have to shoulder the consequences of that lack of resourcing. This further fuels discrimination.
Iâm a parent of a child in an autism class who:
- Had to move from his original school placement (the burden of which was squarely placed on us as his parents) as they did not have an autism class. A school that wanted to open a class was not supported by the department to do so;
- Whose school attendance has been significantly impacted by the school not having the necessary resources to support his needs.
It is very difficult to trust the accuracy of the ministerâs statement or his sincerity. Principals are not able to speak out against the department for fear of retribution.
I suggest an anonymous poll, where schools could be asked as to why they are not opening autism classes, would help the minister out of his puzzlement.
I invite minister Browne to research Smart goals as a project management technique. The acronym refers to goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely.
In this instance, âending homelessnessâ is not a specific goal. A more specific goal would be to âhouse the 15,286 homeless people in Ireland, of whom 4,603 are childrenâ.
The goals should also be measurable. This approach allows you to adjust your plan quickly if you find you are not hitting key incremental milestones. It will also help prevent embarrassing errors such as over-reporting the number of houses built by 25% just before an election.
When it comes to how achievable a goal is, one needs to ask if the goal is something you are equipped to address in an incremental capacity. For instance, if the homelessness crisis gets almost four times worse under 10 years of Government policy, it would be wise to avoid reverting to those same policies.
Smart goals should also be relevant. For a goal to be relevant, it needs to be important to you and/or your organisation. Former minister Eoghan Murphy confirmed that addressing this crisis was not a priority for the government during his tenure so, to make these goals Smart, the Government would need to make the issue a priority.
The final requisite for a Smart plan is that it be timely. A recent RedC poll suggested that 25% of voters who supported minister Browneâs party would not have done so had they known the true housing completion figures.
Fine Gael voters voiced similar sentiments. With this in mind, it would be prudent for the minister to stick to the 2030 deadline offered by his predecessor, as the Government may not have another opportunity to tackle this problem beyond that deadline.
I would advise the minister to consider that a goal without a plan is simply a wish. Wishful thinking will not get us out of this emergency. Realistic planning and accountability will.
Not only must we invest in defence deterrents, like much-needed radar warning systems and fighter aircraft, but we must increase our investment in recruitment and in armaments for all our Defence Forces.
We can no longer rely on our neighbours in Europe, or an America more aligned to Russia than to Western allies, to come to our aid.
We must take decisive action like those of the UK, France, and others, and invest in defence while keeping open our diplomatic channels.
We must do our fair share of the heavy lifting and show the world, and those aggressors, that we may be a small country, but we are a people who have endured, who have fought oppression and hunger, and who will never succumb or acquiesce to the jackboot of extremists or oppressors no matter who they are.
It is time that we hold firmly with our allies and our citizens and do the right and moral thing, and that is to invest in proper deterrents and drown out the noise from those who oppose and who would turn the other cheek in order to maintain their political or social status.
Cowards run away while heroes stand fast.
Following your report on the chaos on the N40 South Ring Rd in your March 1 issue (âTII deploys response teams to ease trafficâ), I am quite frankly left speechless at the incompetence not only of how the spate of accidents on the N40 has been handled, but on the total failure of the intended purpose of a so-called âreliefâ road built just a few decades ago to do the job that it was designed for; to allow traffic to flow smoothly, reduce journey times for all, and to improve safety within and outside the city centre.
The truth, as we all should know now, is that whenever a new major road is built, traffic just builds up to fill the space, and drivers (who are forced to use their cars due to an abysmal bus service and no progress in a Cork light rail) just speed a few seconds faster to the next traffic jam, risking their lives and insurance premiums, not to mention the increased misery for businesses and citizens who suffer loss of valuable time from the resulting congestion.
Surely, there must be a solution, and a far better solution than the half-baked one of wasting huge amounts of money on hiring breakdown trucks, mechanics, and even precious Garda time in trying to put a sticking plaster on the problem which will be washed away soon enough, with the whole cycle of misery starting again within a few days?
Indeed there is, through making an early start on a public transport policy for Cork with light rail at its centre, rather than the so-called âBusConnectsâ which is as bad as forcing people into cars on account of the buses still having to use public roads for most of the routes, as well as requiring hundreds of bus vehicles and drivers to carry the equivalent passengers that can be carried by a small fleet of, say, a dozen trams.
It is imperative now that Cork City Council ditches the âBusConnectsâ fantasy for the false dawn that it is and expedites the reopening of one of the key former rail routes as the first route in a light rail network.
A few hundred million euro should secure the former Mahon branch line as an overhead electrified or maybe battery-operated tram from Capwell bus interchange running via PĂĄirc UĂ Chaoimh, to Mahon Point shopping centre where park and ride by light rail will take an enormous amount of traffic off the N40; a toll or congestion charge can be applied to the N40, the North Ring Rd, and other roads within the city central area to help boost the funding for this light rail route.
The next phase of the Lee Valley light rail would be to electrify the existing Cobh and Midleton rail lines and connect them to the Mahon route with trams running through from Mahon to Midleton/Cobh. These first few routes will be the cheapest to build as the track and stations and so on are already largely in place; thereafter other routes can be gradually added with additional funding from congestion charges, EU grants, and so forth; such as to Bandon, Kinsale, Macroom, and others.
As an additional discouragement to traffic to use the ring roads in future decades, perhaps one lane in each direction can be converted into lanes for buses (a few of which will still be needed to serve districts not directly on light rail routes), as well as cycle lanes, maybe even a special lane for mobility scooters as there are a record number of elderly people too old to drive but who find an electric scooter indispensable.
As a regular cyclist, myself, by the way, I think it is totally disingenuous to force cyclists to use former railway lines re-christened as âgreenwaysâ as they were originally constructed as just one thing: railways.
Most cyclists do not want to be âghettoisedâ onto isolated stretches of badly-lit path going through cuttings and tunnels far from houses, shops, schools, etc, but they want fast and accessible cycle routes between main centres of work, shopping, and accommodation, so all former rail routes around Cork must be allocated to reopening as light rail and cyclists should be given more road space on main roads and yes, that will have to include a new, truly âgreenwayâ cycle route along a reconfigured South Ring Rd.
