THE most common word in Niamh Bhreathnach's political vocabulary is partnership: partnership in education, partnership in the family, partnership in future governments in which she believes a growing Labour Party will be a key player.
She does not believe politics should be about "developing the individual". She hates the idea that as Minister for Education she might be seen as some kind of "Lady Bountiful".
"I don't believe the poor should always be with us. And what particularly drove me to join the Labour Party was a belief that education was a right for everyone."
She says the choice facing the electorate in the next few months will be between a government, containing the Labour Party, which is committed to "social cohesion and social investment and there's no doubt in my mind that education is an investment, not a spending portfolio and a government containing the Progressive Democrats which will cut that social investment.
In her own area, she is scathing about the last Fianna Fail PD government, in which "classes got bigger and the school building budget was cut. I don't think anybody would accept that any more.
Niamh Bhreathnach has always seen herself as a social democrat who "never had any difficulties with the mixed economy". In the late 1980s she was Dick Spring's candidate for party vice chairwoman and chairwoman posts in bruising battles with the left, and had little time for its out of date Marxist language. "Dear comrade that's not me as a woman. I'm not `Dear sister' either."
Despite this, she is an unapologetic feminist, strongly influenced by Kate Millett, who "swept the cobwebs out of my brain", explained the ills of the patriarchal society and introduced her to a "new language of communication, feelings, belief, people centred".
The other word she keeps using is "exciting". Politics is an "exciting opportunity". She compares the Irish "Education Enterprise" to a "Star Wars" style space" ship and talks about her White Paper "charting the future" into the 21st century.
She has seen her son and daughter grow up in an increasingly equal society. "It's not simple to change things, but its' exciting. My children's generation are going to find it even more exciting. I was very privileged to get third level education in the 1960s, but young people are going to play a much bigger role in decision making in the future."
Ms Breathnach comes back to her three obsessions, the need for education, for equal access to education and for partnership in education.
"Those decisions will be taken in partnership. You can only benefit from that if you are able to articulate your needs. The more educated you are, the more you'll have a voice, in places where women's voices are never heard, and at times where the laity's voice is never heard."
She believes change in education and change in the Catholic Church mirror each other. Just as education is not for the elite any more, neither is the church. As a practising Catholic, she is "very conscious of the fact that the church is all its people. That is something the church itself is recognising now.
In educational terms, this means significant change as the role of the religious orders and other church bodies declines. "They aren't visible any more, and I don't think you can let the education system develop without recognising the fact that the armies of nuns and priests and brothers that were available aren't there any more.
She identifies with Prof Joe Lee's appeal to those "who carried the power and responsibility for education in the second half of this century not to battle to retain their power base but to come and "be with us as things are changing". She recognises there are still "old certainties" which might have to be challenged in the future.
PARENTS are one group's he sees moving into the growing vacuum being left by the departure of the religious orders. In framing the Education Bill, she kept in mind that under the Constitution, parents have the inalienable right to educate their children" and it was a question of "how are we going to recognise that".
She is conscious that parents' "tremendous goodwill and interest" in education has to be harnessed, and the parents on school management boards and the proposed regional education boards have to be trained in their new responsibilities. She recognises too that there is a contradiction looming in the growing number of parents demanding multi denominational education at a time when the numbers in the mainstream Catholic schools are falling off.
"In the White Paper we indicated that schools needed to sit down and address how they will offer education to those who aren't necessarily part of their denomination, and schools would have to spell out in their school plan how as a community they would accommodate those who aren't of the majority religious persuasion." She points to the example of a national school in Tipperary where the Catholic Church and the Church of Ireland share a library and a school hall on the same site.
Ms Breathnach hopes the Commission on School Accommodation will come up with a funding mechanism which will make it easier for groups of parents wanting multi denominational education to start schools with less of the huge financial burden they must shoulder at present.
She also sees no reason why there should not be non-denominational schools in the near future, expressing surprise no such group has yet come forward with a" proposal.
She is unmoved by criticisms of the proposed regional education boards, the main plank in the Education Bill, which receives its second reading this week. She will use the Bill's committee stage to reassure people who are concerned that it centralises too much power in the Minister's hands.
Her early contacts with educational lobby groups, notably the, Conference of Religious and the vocational sector, have made her think amendments are probably, necessary to ensure the targeting, of education to the disadvantaged does not get lost in the regional concerns of the boards.
She is even more unapologetic about the angry reaction in Corks to her upgrading of Waterford RTC and suggestions that she had created an unnecessary political headache a few months away from an election. Emphasising that an expert group had recommended more degree courses in the southeast, she says sharply "I could have sat around and done nothing. I am not and was not appointed by Dick Spring to be Minister of Education because I'm somebody who doesn't do anything. I find it very difficult to accept at times the pace of change in order to ensure we're moving forward."
WHEN she went into the Department of Education her perception of it was "like Atlas, it grinds slowly and sometimes backwards".
When she found out how much was happening inside it, which was virtually unknown outside, she set about opening windows and improving channels of communication, aided by a Secretary, Don Thornhill who, in a highly unusual inter-departmental shift, had moved from the Revenue Commissioners.
However, one thing she learned from her first term of office was that change takes longer than you expect. She admits her lack of Dail experience made her underestimate, for example, the 20 hours in committee stage it would stake to get the much amended Universities Bill through.
And what about the teacher unions, which contain many of her strongest critics? She Machiavelli. "Those who initiate "change can't expect to be supported publicly until the change is in place."
Ms Breathnach knows only too well that her most important job now is to get re-elected in Dun Laoghaire "I'm not the Minister with the safest seat." She is conscious that there is an unhappy tradition in recent decades of first time ministers losing their seats after their first term.
She clearly enjoys the challenge of ministerial office. If asked again to play a role in government, she will quickly say "Yes, please". "It would be a privilege" to come back to education. "I have certainly benefited from my experience there and with that experience I have developed my skills in organisation and people management. That would point, probably, to the side of my personality which could serve in another people's ministry"
Social welfare and health are the obvious ones, although she does not rule out justice.
Her strength, she says, is that she is "an organisation and structures person. If a problem is wide or deep, first of all I define the size of it and then I go about it. I never think I have all the wisdom, but I do believe I have a talent for picking good people to work with me."
She is also determined. "I'm dogged, I deliver, I bring in the expertise that's needed and I consult. That's something women are bringing in that men aren't used to. If I consult, you must believe that I will not only listen, but I'll hear." Her third strong card is her toughness. She likes the American slogan "When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping."
Her "nasty experience" of battling with Labour's left in the 1980s made her appreciate that tenacity was a necessary weapon in any successful politician's armoury.
Ms Breathnach does not believe the level of political debate in Irish life is very sophisticated. It's still more about "gimme, gimme, gimme" than political ideas, whether of the left, right or centre. That is one reason she is so keen on introducing civic and political education to the second level curriculum.
"That will help us have a more informed electorate. It should change. You only have to look out of the window at the well managed economy, the prosperity which means that nobody should go to bed hungry I know they do, but they shouldn't under the system we have now.
She is a great believer in Europe. She recalls that when she first became prominent in the Labour Party in the 1980s, with not a single Labour woman in the Oireachtas, Europe was 10 years ahead of Ireland in terms of women's representation. That gap has narrowed since.
On Northern Ireland, she is an optimist and a pragmatist, believing the barriers will come down slowly when people learn to meet and discover their common problems in the European context, as the beef farmers and fishermen are doing. Although she admires the vision and dedication of Dick Spring and John Hume, she believes "this generation hasn't served well" on the North, and "we'll be saved by the young Europeans of the third millennium".
Niamh Bhreathnach is no Maire Geoghegan Quinn. As a highly successful late starter, she plans to stay in politics until she is 60.
"I never dreamed I'd get this opportunity. If I haven't time to enjoy it at the moment, sure isn't that a good price to pay? All you can say is make the best of every opportunity. Have I wasted my time, I sometimes ask myself. Will I regret things? Maybe when you've time to regret them it'll be too late. So I just go full speed ahead."