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 Alan Kelly Fine Gael TD and Tipperary North/South Offaly Candidate, Noel Coonan, has sharply hit out at MEP Alan Kelly, latter currently still AWOL and on walk about from the real job, for which he was elected by the people of Munster at the last European elections. Eamonn Gilmore’s ‘bright little hope’ and ready ‘scare mongerer’ in the Tipperary North/South Offaly constituency is claiming, in a press release to Tipp FM this morning, that the Fine Gael Party and Fianna Fáil, if in office, will cut teacher numbers.
Mr Kelly is obviously retaliating today, having read this weeks Tipperary Star Newspaper, in which Deputy Maire Hoctor, whose Fianna Fáil party supporters, need a garda escort to enable them to go canvassing in Offaly, claims that the Labour party will close rural schools.
In this case, though it grieves me greatly to say it, Maire appears to be correct. Mr Kelly, who had the worst voting record in 2009 in Seanad Éireann, voting just nine times out of a possible 55, appears to never read the Irish Independent, which published recently a report by his party colleague Deputy Quinn, (latter the ‘would be’ Education Minister in any unlikely Labour government,) that he favoured amalgamating small rural schools, using the HSE’s hospital ‘Centres of Excellence’ recipe model, latter which has left North Tipperary without any real medical services.
Thurles Information today contacted Deputy Coonan regarding this report and the Deputy laughingly stated:
“The date for voting is getting ever so close and this is a desperate measure by Mr Alan Kelly, who is throwing about anything that he believes the public want to hear, instead of dealing honestly with the real problems facing the education sector. His claims are completely incorrect and are also hugely disappointing, coming as they do from an MEP, who has obviously not studied his homework. He should know at this stage that Fine Gael in power is in a position to credibly commit to an increase of 2,500 teachers from the 2010 levels by 2014 in order to maintain current pupil-teacher ratios.
The Labour MEP’s attacks on Fine Gael policy smacks of complete desperation and Alan Kelly’s untrue accusation further undermines his credibility, following his pledge to the people to serve as an MEP for five years, but backing away from this responsibility less than two years into his term of office.
Labour is a high tax party and, unlike Fine Gael, does not have any credible plan to fix the economy. Fine Gael is determined to protect vital front line services in the public sector, especially those provided by teachers in rural schools, and I think Mr Kelly would be better placed wasting his energy on formulating just one original policy of his own.
We in Fine Gael will cut spending levels across all Departments in order to protect the quality of the educational experience received by our children. We will not increase class sizes and to achieve this objective we will work with education partners to seek further efficiencies in work practices, in line with the Croke Park Agreement, and to devolve more power to school principals and teachers to make tight budgets go further.
Meanwhile, Fine Gael scored highest overall when it came to proposals for political reform according to the academic group, Reformcard, who examined proposals under five headings: Oireachtas, Electoral, Open Government, Public Sector and Local Government Reform and marked each party’s plans out of 100 marks.
Fine Gael was ahead on the group’s ratings for political reform plans with an overall score of 73 out of 100. Labour followed on 68, Fianna Fáil on 58, the Green Party on 53 while Sinn Féin was on a low 26 on the scoreboard.
Fine Gael pledges to open all government data, protect whistleblowers, make public sector budgets more accountable and appoint a minister of Public Service reform, greatly impressed this group.
Continue reading Alan Kelly MEP ‘Desperate’ States Coonan
Templemore Garda Training College here in Templemore, Co Tipperary, was once among the most elite of police academies in Europe. Its future seemed excellent with the purchase of a further 220 acre site at Clonmore, situated close to Templemore, for the inflated price of €5.5 million. Latter was ear marked for use as a firearms and tactical training facility almost four years ago.
Political Promises All Lies
In June of last year, at the Garda Training College, outgoing Fianna Fail Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern indicated that a new recruitment campaign would be implemented in late 2010.
The same Minister for Justice, Mr Dermot Ahern stated:
“For the people living here in Templemore this college is very important – it’s a fine facility here and its here will be used for the new recruits and indeed for their training. I know there were some suggestions that this place might be mothballed, however there is no question of that.”
 Templemore Garda Training College Confirmation from the Minister for Justice that the Garda College in Templemore was safe, was received by Independent Deputy Michael Lowry. Mr Lowry sought assurances after local Templemore Town Councillors spoke of ‘rumours of imminent closure‘ due to the current recruitment embargo. Deputy Lowry communicated this information to a specially convened meeting of Templemore Town Councillors and North Tipperary Oireachtas representatives, in Templemore town hall.
It now appears Mr Lowry was badly deceived by the government he so willingly supported and Tipperary’s largest employer in North Tipperary, this same Garda Training College, has been forced to lay off dozens of catering and housekeeping staff, together with large numbers of resident officers also being redeployed out of the facility.
This exodus of local employment and resources is currently having a severe negative impact on Templemore town and the surrounding region. We now see the volume of business and young people diminishing and the local families, who would previously have provided lodgings for the student Gardaí, are feeling the impact of the present recruitment ban.
It now appears that Garda recruitment will not take place until 2014 for full time members, with selection being made only from persons who have already joined up from the Reserve Gardaí volunteer members within An Garda Síochána, who provide support to full-time members and supposedly help to strengthen links between the force and local communities throughout the country.
It is envisaged that these Reserve Members will form 10% or more of the full-time professional force into the future. It now also appears that, thanks to the mismanagement of the outgoing government, Ireland can no longer afford to properly protect its citizens in the future.
Tipperary Regional Youth Services are proud to announce their first lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Seminar which will take place this Thursday, the 10th of February at 7:30pm in the Ballykisteen Hotel, Tipperary.
The keynote speaker will be Senator David Norris and the evening will be chaired by Founder and Director of BeLonG To Youth Services, Michael Barron. Members of Loving Our Out Kids (previously Parents’ Support) will also be in attendance.
The seminar will offer information and support on many areas relating to LGBT young people:
1. How can I support my LGBT family member / friends?
2. What services are available locally and nationally?
3. What exactly does it mean to be LGBT?
There is no admission fee for this event. Places, however, must be reserved and unfortunately, the deadline for reserving places was 4th February last.
Contact: Lisa McGrath at telephone 062-52604 with any enquiries.
Last weekend saw one of the annual highlights for game developers around the world, yes I am referring to the 3rd annual ‘Global Games Jam.’
Once again this global event smashed it’s own record for the single largest games jam ever – 48 hours, 44 countries, 170 locations, 6500 participants, almost 1500 games, one weekend with just one theme.
Global Games Jam hosts Tipperary Institute, here in Thurles, rose to the challenge of organising and joining a game coding marathon for students, creating games, which were then viewed live by International gaming enthusiasts and gaming industry leaders.
Participants were here to make games – fast. It was part of the Global Game Jam, a worldwide event wherein developers, artists and musicians got together to make games in less than 48 hours with eating and sleep left optional.
Some 7,000 odd developers on Friday evening, across the world, worked creating computer games based on a common choosen theme ‘Extinction‘.
When presented with the theme, ‘Jammers’ set about brainstorming concepts, students pitched ideas to attract developers, artists and designers to join their team. Twenty two concepts in total were pitched and these were then honed down, strictly on merit, to just four ideas.
Games agreed and decided were titled ‘Petals’, ‘What We Do Now’, ‘Human Kind’ and ‘Petri Paridice’.
Mr Philip Bourke, the Course Coordinator for T I Development and Games Design stated: “This is as real as it gets, the sandbox nature of these projects, allow our students to experiment with development, design and gameplay in collaboration with their peers. The need to quickly and efficiently produce the code, art and audio assets for fun games in a fantastic way to develop innovation skills.”
Conor O’ Neill, one of the team that produced Petals, said: “This being my first jam, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I imagined it would be extremely challenging to get our ideas into a playable game in just 48 hours. We were delighted to find everyone so helpful in both Tipperary Institute.”
All games produced will be now be showcased later during the annual computer console game programming festival ‘Games Fleadh’ at Tipperary Institute in March next on 9th-10th.
Sometimes I wonder if all of the money spent on education is wasted, but actions taken by students yesterday and hopefully today, have allayed those fears.
The Union of Students in Ireland (USI) will take a visit to Leinster House today to officially launch their ‘Your Future, Your Vote‘ campaign.
The USI “Your Future, Your Vote” aims to allow the younger generation of Ireland to decide their own future and to make the politicians aware that students are registering to vote en masse.
USI President Gary Redmond stated the analogy and logic used by President Barack Obama in his State of the Union Address: “Ireland is spending billions of euro on educating young people before sending them abroad to compete against us. There are parents every single day of the week in the airports all over the country saying goodbye to their children.”
I would have been delighted to show you a piece of video from Dail Eireann, but no material was available.
 USI are on the move
USI are encouraging all local students to register to vote, prior to the looming general election. They claim that for too long the younger generations of Irish society have been ignored, but now, it is time that politicians sat up and listened.
Young people in Ireland will shoulder years of crippling debt thanks to the mistakes of the current generation and they will not tolerate a single second more of lacklustre governance from Irish politicians.
They claim that on polling day, politicians in every corner of the country will realise that students are no longer a dormant force as thousands of young people descend on polling stations to decide the future direction of this country.
Yesterday the special tour bus took to the road and hundreds of students abandoned canteens, bars, lecture halls and libraries, in the Tipperary Institute in Thurles, in Carlow College, and in IT Carlow to registered to vote.
The Union of Students in Ireland (USI) is on the move, aiming to sign up 50,000 students to vote in the next fortnight and they are adamant students will have the power to influence change.
President of IT Carlow Students’ Union Kate Acheson stated yesterday: “We will not tolerate a single second more of lacklustre governance from Irish politicians. On polling day, politicians in every corner of this country will realise that students are no longer a dormant force in society.”
USI claim that they intend to meet all of the political parties in the coming days to ask them directly their future policies on college fees/ and grants.
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