Sir, - During Niamh Bhreathnach's term of office as Minister for Education she was in possession of three reports on schooling needs in Knocklyon, not two as she wrote (June 21st) in reply to my letter of June 18th. The first was the report upon which her predecessor Seamus Brennan based his decision to proceed with the school project; the second was the first independent report which outlined five options for Ms Bhreathnach; and the third was the second independent report which detailed significant statistical errors in the projected population growth for the area and which recommended that the school project should proceed.
Ms Bhreathnach chose a political option from the first independent report, which was calculated to embarrass her predecessor in Education and strengthen the constituency position of her Labour Party colleague Eithne FitzGerald. This is what I meant by "blatant politicking". Furthermore, Ms Breathnach's claim that building the school would have cost far more than providing extensions to existing schools in neighbouring areas has not been borne out by facts. Nor has her unworkable proposal to form a "regional post-primary campus out of two single-sex schools come to pass. No, I'm afraid that Knocklyon was an early testing ground for both Ms Bhreathnach and Ms FitzGerald's ideological visions; and both were too stubborn to back down.
Her comment that "an articulate and well-organised pressure group can put pressure on public representatives to ignore independent findings ..." is an unfortunate insult to the other four TDs in this constituency, all of whom support the school project and one of whom was a Rainbow colleague of Ms FitzGerald's. Another case of everyone being out of step except Labour, no doubt.
Ironically, an interview with Ms Bhreathnach in the same edition of your paper concludes with her acknowledging that "Labour have a lot of listening to do" and asking, "are we a bit preachy ?" The answer is definitely yes. - Yours, etc.,
Chairman,
Knocklyon Post-Primary
Committee,
Glenvara Park,
Dublin 16