Does anyone remember Club Milk Gate, when a leading member of the National Parents' Council, Pat O'Herlihy, crept into the bar during the ASTI annual conference last April and claimed he got a "bunch of fives" rather than some biscuits and milk?
This alleged incident was hotly disputed by O'Herlihy and theteachers gathered at the Great Southern Hotel. Garda∅ took statements and indignant parents' reps hit the radio talkshows to strike back at the ASTI.
Well TP hears that Club Milk Gate is officially over, with the Garda closing its files and the parents no longer interested in pursuing the case. All speculation about what happened that night will have to remain just that - bar talk.
The bosses at our third-level institutions sometimes appear a remote and self-important lot. TP always believed that when their governing bodies met for their monthly meetings the subjects they discussed were highly onerous and abstract. But not our friends at DIT. According to minutes released under the Freedom of Information Act, their meeting of September 12th addressed the apparently pressing matter of a broken lift at DIT Bolton Street. While its mechanical problems no doubt inconvenienced many, TP's mind boggles at how such a relatively mundane matter could merit inclusion on the agenda for the meeting of a governing body.
Last week's leak of the task-force report on autism put the cat among the pigeons over at Marlborough Street. The good Doctor Woods was bypassed by events as tireless campaigner Kathryn Sinnott took to the airwaves again to lambast the record of this Government - and previous ones - on autism. This will not have cheered Woods up at all. He feels aggrieved that nobody has recognised that when he came into office, the special-needs area was in a shambles and, at least, he increased spending on it.
That aside, the ball is now firmly back in the Department's court. Will it put an amendment to the people? What will be the wording? And if passed, what would it cost the Exchequer?
These are complex questions to be pondered by the Doc. Maybe the general election will come along and those questions will be passed on to some other unfortunate.
Finally, TP must say a big sorry to those budding hacks over at the University Observer, one of UCD's two student newspapers. TP recently gave credit for a story about a UCD academic to the Observer's rival and not to Observer itself.
If only TP had the staff resources of the Observer, such errors might be eliminated.
Got any education gossip? You can e-mail TP in confidence at teacherspet@irish-times.ie
