Good lord - is Master Batt O’Keefe in danger of turning into a modern-day Huey Long, a radical redistributionist who wants to confiscate wealth from the rich and give it to everyone else?  He seems to have recently discovered the fact that there are lots of millionaires running about the place and he is using that fact [...]

Just when you despair of sensible commentary in our media, along comes someone like Carl O’Brien, Social Affairs Correspondent of the Irish Times. Writing today, he puts the educational challenges facing society into context - and not a very hopeful one considering the level of political debate surrounding the tuition fee controversy. [...]

Fidel Castro once said that in the classless society there would be no need for universities because all society would be a learning experience. I don’t think he was being literal, just posing the possibility of an educationally and democratically enriched society. It certainly makes a sharp contrast with the debate over education [...]

What a dog’s dinner. Education Minister, Batt O’Keefe, flew his ‘bring back tuition fees’ kite. It was immediately shot down by the Greens, the PDs and, even, Minister Hanafin. Then the PDs were shot down by Minister Mary Harney who thinks its a good idea to, at least, debate tuition fees. Is [...]

Retraining is all the political rage. To deal with rising unemployment and slowing job creation, the opposition parties are demanding a programme of retraining - in particular, those being laid off in the construction sector. No one, of course, is opposed to that. It makes sense. Yes, let’s retrain and retrain [...]