BRIAN HAYES: VILLAGE IDIOT WITH A PENSION PLAN
Aug 20th, 2008 by Conor McCabe
Laughing my ass off at Brian Hayes’ comments yesterday about his proposal to introduce segregation to Irish schools. Dr. James O’Higgins-Norman, is quoted in todays Irish Independent as saying that the call for segregation was “clearly, although maybe not intentionally, racist in nature”. John Carr of the INTO said that the segregation call was “”discriminatory, inequitable and deeply flawed”. In defending his comments, Hayes said that
“This is a serious issue that has been raised by teachers and it has to be taken seriously, not in a childish way that some academic wants to raise.”
Quite right, Brain. Those bloody teachers and academics should just shut up and stick to what they know.
Which would be, ehm, teaching.
Oops.
What Hayes is suggesting, although not stating it, is that because some immigrants don’t have English initially that they are holding the other Irish kids back, which feeds into the nonsense spouted by David Quinn when he said that the state was to blame for “White Flight”, where Irish parents take their kids out of school with a high immigrant population.
“Immigration” has always been an issue with Fine Gael, and it’s no surprise that Leo Varadkar and Lucinda Creighton were using it as one of the main reasons for the No vote on Lisbon. Just like the “Education debate” politicians have no idea what they’re talking about when it comes to immigration. It’s very much playing to the prejudices of the gallery. When it comes to immigration and education you get ignorance squared.
It does seem unnecessarily harsh to force children into classrooms where they are doomed to failure, and a child in secondary school lacking language skills is surely doomed to fail. Offering intensive langauge training as an alternative to simply dumping kids into mainstream education and letting them get on with it may not be a bad idea.
You run the classes concurrently. It happens all the time in education. Hayes wants the kids out of the class altogether. Segregated. And it’s that segregated idea of education that the professionals find offensive. Not only that, the professionals know how flawed the idea is in pedagogical terms. But sure, as a former secondary school teacher, Hayes knows that already. He’d be fully aware of the pedagogies. That’s what makes his segregation idea all the more offensive.
If classes are run concurrently surely the children end up sitting in different rooms? According to the Irish Times the ASTI’s comment was that: “it preferred to describe the teaching of immigrant children apart from their peers as “immersion classes” rather than “segregation”.” - which is semantics at best and to be honest O’Higgins-Normans racism comment smacks of someone with not a lot to add looking to shut down any discussion. I don’t have school age children, and went to school in the days of 99% Irish raised kids so this simply wasn’t an issue, but if there is a problem shouldn’t potential solutions be examined?
By concurrently, what I mean is, you have language classes on top of the normal classes. You do not have a situation whereby you have the kids learning english, and then afterwards slot them into the education system, which is the basis of Hayes’ so-called ´solution´. You use immersion teaching. “Conurrently” here is that you have extra language classes going on while the kids are attending normal classes - not physically at the the same time, but as part of the curriculum. and certainly not as a “segregated” classroom where the students get to speak and practise English only with other students learning English as a second language and their teacher. The “segregated” solution takes the student out of the system altogether, so that they are not with Irish (i.e. native English speaking) students for any subject. Hayes’ comments, and his use of the word “segregation”, was used to appeal to the racist streak in middle-class Ireland. And going by the ignorant pap being spouted over on the Irish Times’ poll on the topic, it’s worked as well. That’s the ABC1s for you. Absolutely no problem giving a definitive solution to something they know fuck-all about.
Hayes is a halfwit. I doubt he used the word ’segregation’ because he wanted to push buttons. He wouldn’t have the presence of mind know he was pushing the buttons. He was using the word ’segregation’ because he thinks segregation is a good idea. As do plenty of ABC1s who don’t want people with funny accents and skin colours coming along and making off with a hunk of prime education to which their own children are entitled as part of the joyous national project to enlighten the Irish mind.
ABC1s aren’t affected by this, certainly not at secondary level - their kids are in fee paying or selection-based-on-exam, single sex, mostly single class secondary schools. As an educational issue this primarily affects recently immigrated children and in a secondary way all pupils of schools in working / lower middle class areas. But regardless of Hayes himself i cannot see how a sink or swim attitude to these kids is sensible or humane, even if it ticks an ideological box (and if that box is perpetuating a notion that Irish kids are currently educated in a single and equitable way its bullshit). Nor for that matter can i see a scenario where ASTI members start running after school language classes on top of the working week, or that kids should be forced to spend even more of their own week at school rather than having the chance to catch up within normal hours.
And that’s based on your experience of being a teacher, Londoner, is it? That immersion is a “sink or swim” technique? That it’s not part of a pedagogy, but is in fact merely an “ideology”?
You’re right to point out that, if there is an issue, it doesn’t predominantly affect ABC1s. Regarding the inequities in the education system: one way of avoiding this is to shout stop thief! and point the finger at the immigrants, which is precisely what Hayes, the Irish Independent et al are doing.
In terms of a ’sink or swim’ approach: yes, children need extra tuition where appropriate. But there is a lot to be said for combining grammar and comprehension classes as one component of the curriculum with getting thrown in at the deep end in other areas.
Brian Hayes’ comments have at least prompted some debate about the scandalous way our education system deals with non-native English speakers. As far as I can see, the Department of Education implemented the present system with little or no research on successful and not so successful models in place in countries such as the USA, Australia and the UK.
1. The vast majority of our teachers have no training in this area. I’ve spoken to many secondary school teachers who have no idea how to include students with limited English and ensure they understand the material so they make no effort to do so. They also feel that it is not their job to do this but the responsibility of the Language Support Teacher.
2. Language Support Teachers need no specialised training. They just need to be qualified primary/ secondary school teachers. The group which were responsible for providing Language Support teachers with materials and seminars, Integrate Ireland Language and Training, has been closed. In my opinion they were doing a terrible job anyway with poorly designed materials that seemed to me to be more about promoting the European Language Portfolio so Professor David Little of TCD could use it as a vehicle to get invited to conferences around Europe, using the Irish experience as an example of the ELP in practice. As far as I am aware there is now no organisation responsible for training and supporting Language Support teachers.
3. Schools are given very little support to communicate with students and their parents. Situations have occurred where teachers have not even been able to find out where their student comes from.
4. Students with limited English spend the majority of their time in mainstream classrooms and are withdrawn for Language support. Although this system might be appropriate for a young primary school student where the language they need to acquire is less cognitively complex, it is not appropriate for secondary school students who need to acquire a language, learn the content and sit state exams in couple of years. Imagine sitting in a classroom where you don’t understand the language, where the teachers make little effort to include you or ensure you understand the content, where you can’t speak to your peers and having to do it for most of the week.
Brian Hayes’ suggestion of ‘segregation’ (a seriously unfortunate choice of words which he still defends) is exactly the same as the ASTI’s suggestion of ‘immersion courses’. They are for the benefit of students with limited English who would have time to acquire some level of English before they enter the mainstream so when this happens they can at least understand some of the content. A similar model is in place in Victoria in Australia where almost 15% of their students are non-native English speakers. Students with limited English spend 6 to 12 months in ‘immersion courses’ before they enter the mainstream. (http://www.eduweb.vic.gov.au/edulibrary/public/teachlearn/student/lem/ENGL_DET.pdf)
By the way, have a look at Dr James O’Higgins-Norman’s publications and see if you think he has any more authority to comment on this than the normal joe: http://www.dcu.ie/info/staff_member.php?id_no=2379
I posted about this on my own blog a couple days ago: http://tinyurl.com/66hgy8
While I agree Hayes’s use of the word “segregation” was at best asinine, at worst deeply cynical, there is a genuine debate on the best way to deal with students that don’t speak the language. In California the progressive position is that you do separate them - you teach them history, maths etc in their own language while also giving them intensive English courses, the idea being that after a couple years their English will have improved enough to allow them do the rest of their studies with the native students. That’s different to what Hayes is proposing, of course, but it’s separation nonetheless.
This all distracts from what is IMHO the real issue, which is the obscene under-resourcing of English language support in the schools to begin with. There aren’t enough teachers; they’re poorly trained (in most countries they have advanced degrees in English as an Additional Language teaching; here they get an instruction pack and any additional training they want has to be paid for out of their own pocket); they’re hired on a temporary basis only, so it isn’t a position that attracts people with a genuine interest in it and they don’t build up expertise from years of experience etc etc etc…
There is not a genuine debate going on - outside of course of us remarkable rockets in the blogosphere.
As you point out, last year the government cut funding for language support teaching - such as it was - and now we have Hayes calling for segregation. Hayes’ comments are in line with the view that non-native speaking members of the community are a problem. So now, the debate that’s going on in the mainstream - such as it is - has to do with the “problem” caused by non-native speakers in the education system, instead of the problems faced by non-native speakers. Hayes is no Forrest Gump. He knows exactly what he is saying - in fact, his comments are completely in line with Fine Gael’s view of immigrants, which is a fairly robust, racist, right-wing view: work them for as much as you can for as little as you can, and use them as your whipping boy once the downturn kicks in. Hayes and Fine Gael, and its supporters, want a segregated school system so that immigrant children will end up in immigrant schools. and if you look at how underfunded the mainstream school system is these days, picture a segregated one with schools for the children of parents with no vote.
Fine Gael. Fucking cunts.
A bit off topic, I know, but maybe they should track down the very same ‘rockets’ that thought up 60 years of getting non-native Irish speakers in the Galltacht to not be able to produce a complete sentence in Irish after 10 or more years of being compulsorily ‘taught’ it several hours a week….
A crack team of the pick of that lot would have all those bluddy furrners talking English like feckin’ taxi drivers in 6 months….
In other words, the Department of Education and language-teaching weren’t exactly meant to go together.
Oh and Conor, from the last 4 words of your last comment - have you been on the ‘Advanced Taxi Driver English’ course ?
The construction seems curiously familiar…
Yes, that was precisly my experience when i taught, students lacking well developed language skills were not in a position to fully engage with their coursework, or to fully articulate the depth of their understanding where they had managed to overcome the comprehsion issue, and that was in a third level context where students were likely to be more confident and better placed to appreciate why they were in the position they were. As I said earlier, I don’t necessarily know what the answer is, nor however do i think Irish schools should react to a new dynamic by carrying on regardless. I certainly don’t think that well thought out, responsive solutions are found to problems by being so blithly, and arrogantly, dismissive of differing points of view.
Yeah that was my experience teaching at third level as well. I spent more time correcting grammar than engaging with the arguments in the essays. But there you go. Grammar is not taught at second-level in Ireland and England, and that bleeds over to third level. I’ll tell you what, though, it’s not the same experience as teaching English to non-native speakers who are sitting the leaving cert, which I’ve also done. Different dynamics, different pedagogy.
Mind you, my experience of teaching native speakers at second level and native speakers at third level had some similarities. Oh, and I take it that you got the same fuck-all training for teaching at third level that I got when I was given the third-level gig, Londoner.
As far as blithly dismissing arguments, I have to ask you what did you expect on a post that took the piss out of the racist comments of a Fine Gaeler? A fucking dialectic? Frankly, I’m amazed that anyone can come out and say that there was anything of value in Hayes’ comments. This whole “at least he’s starting a debate” is bollicks. Fine Gael are pushing the anti-immigrant line, and Hayes is part of this. The “at least” is a straw man missing an edward woodword. Hayes and Fine Gael are engaged with typical right-wing fanfare. To be fair, “at least” they’ve started the debate about right-wing fanfare and baiting immigrants to win votes.
Oh, wait. Sorry. That’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about grammar in universities. How silly of me.
A village idiot savant?
Interesting background info and reasonable comment from sopa_azteca there. To which I would add: the amount of reliable information available on this topic is pretty scarce. Proposing one particular solution -segregation, immersion or whatever you want to call it- doesn’t necessarily apply in all cases. For instance, I know of one school of more than several hundred students where you have maybe 5 or 6 pupils in the whole school whose native language is not English. How are immersion courses gonna work there? The closer you get to Dublin and other urban centres the more workable it might seem, but each child’s situation and learning requirements are different, so immersion -even if it works reliably- isn’t always feasible anyway.
The amount of information on teaching strategies with relation to immigrant students is vast. With relation to Ireland, the types of strategies applicable, and the implementation of same, have been part of debates and conferences in Ireland for the past ten years - the latest was in June of this year. However, as with almost all topics in Ireland, the people with the knowledge of those teaching strategies are sidelined, or simply ignored, or when they are approached, it is in relation to their response to borderline racist comments such as those made by Hayes. and then you get the - I’m sorry but its true - simply daft response from people that “well at least Hayes has started a debate” (!) As if teachers and teaching professionals have been doing fuck-all regarding this topic until fuck-for-brains showed up waving “segregation” from his stiff saluted hand. I mean it is actually insulting to those who have been engaging with this situation for years at grassroots level (and I know a couple of them) to hear in the mainstream, as you get in today’s Indo editorial, that the debate is being stifled by flirtations with unfortunate language on one side, and “political correctness gone mad” on the other.
(Typical Indo. The “debate” is set up in racist terms - as in “what do you think of Hayes’ racist comments” and then when the professionals give an answer, you hear “well the whole debate has been stifled by racist comments and political correctness gone mad. What we need are cool heads and a bit of common sense”. )
I mean, look at the fight that the teachers´unions have had to put up with regard to funding for special needs teachers - and we’re talking a long time fighting that corner - and what do we have now? The scapegoating of immigrant children in an economic downturn (let’s just pocket the billions of euros immigrant workers have given to the state in taxes over the past ten years) with a call for their segregation - to be put into intellectual ghettos, for their own good . The experts are ignored as “ideological” in approach, while the grassroots are sidelined and forced to make-do while the Indo wanks itself silly waiting for the European interest rates to drop so we can go back to buying fucking houses again.
Fine Gael’s entire focus these days is on immigrants as a problem. Hayes’ comments are slap-bang in the middle of what is now mainstream thought in Fine Gael.
But, well, at least he’s started a debate on the topic, unlike those Aran jumper-wearing sandal-slappers who’ve been sitting around for the past ten years with their tofu thumbs up their arses. It takes the intellectual vigor of a Fine Gael spokesman to really allow The Shit to get its mojo working.
I’m not talking about teaching strategies. I’m talking about numbers of children in this predicament, where they go to school, basic stuff like that. Is there anything publicly available?
There is not a genuine debate going on - outside of course of us remarkable rockets in the blogosphere.
I didn’t mean only in Ireland.
As always, talk to the experts. Newcomer statistics in Irish education is by no means my field of research - I know very little statistic-wise APART from knowing that research has, and is, carried out on the topic. The research is being done - in fact the ESRI have an ongoing project on the integration of newcomer students in primary and secondary schools http://tinyurl.com/6ddmwx - and well as the people below. I suppose the newspapers COULD send these guys an email and ask them for their informed opinion, but sure why bother doing that when you can get the intellectual ninjas of Fine Gael to sort it out?
http://www.tcd.ie/immigration/english/index.php
http://www.tcd.ie/immigration/english/aboutus.php
www.tcd.ie/immigration/documents/PG%20Conference/DillonA.pdf
http://tinyurl.com/6gxh69
In fairness to the Irish Times they did publish a comment piece by Karl Kitching who is described as being “attached to St Patrick’s College, Drumcondra, Dublin, where he is a researcher and lecturer in ethnic and linguistic diversity in primary and post-primary schools”. I’ve no idea if he’s a Catholic Academic Ninja, or Left-Liberal sop, but judging by this Amnesty International flier for a seminar on tackling racism in schools which was organised in St. Patrick’s last year I would peg him as ‘progressive’.
Whichever way he swings, I agree with this point:
And indeed a few of his others in what is a rather excellent piece.
But Hayes comment is similar to Batt O’Keeffe’s comments on fees, who was also commended for opening the issue up for ‘debate’. What we get is not a debate, but a series of terse exchanges in the media which provides very little new information or enlightenment.
So maybe in the near future we will have round table discussions on Prime Time on the issue where real experts will be asked their opinion on fees, or integration in schools. Or perhaps we’ll be treated to a series of informed articles in the newspapers where experts in their respective fields offer insights for a non-expert readership. Perhaps that will come. But in the meantime we have wingnuts like Desmond Fennel offering us insights on declining birth rate among whites.
Jesus Wept!
Is this whole ‘at least they’ve started the debate’ and ‘they’re not afraid to upset the immigrants like the PC sheep’ argument breaker new? It smacks of other recent classics like ‘anti-Americanism’.
I’ve only recently become conscious of it after Myers’ racist dirges on Africa. The “intellectual maverick” (honestly, that’s how his editors refer to him!) wakes up one morning intoxicated by his own overwhelming uniqueness and recalls something he read a few months before about population growth, does a quick search of the Irish Times archive for a John O’Shea opinion piece about corruption and manages to cough and splutter an incoherent 700 words onto a page, but not before carefully framing it in the most racist terms he can muster, suddenly he’s an “intellectual maverick”.
[It has to be pointed out, and I’m not aware of anyone doing it thus far - perhaps I’m an intellectual maverick too, but doesn’t the fact John O’Shea came out in support of Myers, and that that move was entirely predictable, suggest that Myers did not start the ‘debate’ at all? In fact he simply reframed it in the suitably racist terms some very vocal people could identify with.]
You don’t start a sincere debate by framing it with a preordained conclusion. Certainly, it’s virtually impossible to engage an argument if it is already so fundamentally skewed towards a certain outcome. One is forced to disprove, for instance, absurdities like the claim all Africans are ’sexually hyperactive indigents’ before an actual debate, on the +alleged issue+, can begin.
This was my, admittedly slightly jumbled, comment on the IT’s Bryan Mykandi’s blog:
What better way to indoctrinate the ideological concept of segregation than by ’separating’ those who are deemed different at an early age. How too, to further confuse the already Orwellian construct of the ‘education’ process, by further diverging from, for example, the culturally diverse reality of life outside those four walls, to the controlled homogeneity of life within. And thereby reinforcing all the false truths that it promotes.
The school process is already so arbitrarily distinct from ‘real life’ that a course of reasoning that suggests segregating children along racial and ethnic lines appears to the disinterested as nothing more sinister than a logical progression (whether it is supported by ‘the facts’ or not is irrelevant, as is evident from Brian Hayes comments) - the education system is designed to produce productive units, therefore if you can tweak the process to increase it’s efficiency then so be it, even if that means creating further artificial social division. How the child is supposed to reconcile its education with real life upon graduating is not clear, presumably this can be taught, albeit contradictorily, by the segregating system too?
http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/outsidein/2008/08/20/seperate-but-equal/
Not to be left out, Brian makes an interesting observation too:
“Mr. Hayes called for the hijab to be banned in schools earlier this year on the grounds that “There is enough segregation in Ireland without adding this to it. Segregating in this way is not helpful to Muslims and not helpful to anybody.””
The research is being done - in fact the ESRI have an ongoing project on the integration of newcomer students in primary and secondary schools
As I said in my own blog, the research has been done in the US for years and a lot of it (although by no means all of it) favours bilingual education which by definition involves educating English-speaking children separately from non-English speaking children. There simply isn’t one unanimous expert opinion on the subject.
Just looking around, I see that there’s an issue right now in Texas where a federal court has ordered the state to revamp its bilingual education programme, in which children are educated separately in primary school and then mainstreamed into all-English classes. If the debate in Texas is anything like it was in California when I lived there, then it’s the racists (and Texas racists make Fine Gaelers look like Rosanna Flynn) who are calling for the children to be fully mainstreamed while it’s the bleeding-heart types like you and me who as insisting that the bilingual ie separate elements of the programme must be retained.
It’s just not that black and white an issue, pardon the pun.
Fine Gael have made their own right-wing bed, Dan, and they can fucking lie in it. As I said, Hayes’ comments are completely within mainstream Fine Gael thought these days. Racist, nasty, neo-liberal fuckwits.
Criticism of Hayes here is spot on the mark. Sadly, I’ve seen very little of it in the mainstream press but what would we expect? People are right to point out that he knew exactly what he was doing - this was a calculated approach to appeal to fear, and fuck the consequences. The supposed apology today was part and parcel of the entire shame.
That a similar approach has been taken by other prominent FGers shows the increase in reactionary rhetoric and socially and economically right-wing policies amongst their parliamentary party; it’s not just Varadkar ‘off on one’ again, but the foundations of a concrete base for FG policy going forward.
By the way, the Indo’s role in this is similarly vulgar and callous.
PS - David’s qoute above on the hijab is a classic!
Conor, “Racist, nasty, neo-liberal fuckwits.” If we’re all those things in your judgement then I’m sure that if you go in looking with the aim of looking for racism you will be able to find it. Sounds to me that you’re the one who can’t see passed his own prejudices. Either there is a problem at 2nd level with kids who can’t understand the lessons adequately, and if so should something be done and what should that something be?
It sounds to me like the answer to (a) and (b) would be yes, but you may differ but if you agree then we’re down to the nature of (c). The idea that an individual teacher at 2nd level teaching a subject not English through the medium of English with maybe 2/3 classes per week of 40/45 minutes can teach effectively to all 20/30 kids in their class with maybe 5/6 of them not able to comprehend the lesson is farce. Fact is many parents moving to another country take the view that their children will need to drop down a year in order to give them the time to get the language, either do a year in the new place and then repeat or do the year they’ve just finished. Parents are frequently realistic about education.
Instead much the negative commentary appears to be either suggesting that there is no real problem at all or an argument over semantics in that there may be something going on but that we can’t call it a problem - maybe we could adopt the corporate response and tag it as a challenge or opportunity then it will all go away.
Oddly enough this exact approach of separating out has been taken for many years with regard to kids who come back to the Irish system who aren’t required to take Irish for the Junior/Leaving Cert. They are removed from Irish classes and allowed use the free period for homework. Children move around in classes in secondary school all the time. I think much of the reaction in the media owes more to people being so much on the look out for racism emerging (as it may well will) to the extent that very white sheet blowing in the wind is a Klansman outfit.
“The research is being done - in fact the ESRI have an ongoing project on the integration of newcomer students in primary and secondary schools http://tinyurl.com/6ddmwx - and well as the people below. I suppose the newspapers COULD send these guys an email and ask them for their informed opinion, but sure why bother doing that when you can get the intellectual ninjas of Fine Gael to sort it out?
http://www.tcd.ie/immigration/english/index.php
http://www.tcd.ie/immigration/english/aboutus.php
www.tcd.ie/immigration/documents/PG%20Conference/DillonA.pdf”
I had a look at that pdf. I was just wondering why the only sources that expert refers to apart from the NCCA and Department of Education are people who presumably work across the hall from her in TCD. I have already pointed out the relationship between TCD and IILT. I would expect an expert to provide and use a wide-ranging bibliogragraphy to demonstrate that the ideas they are presenting are based on extensive reading in the area rather than just what their pals have written.
The last link you supply (http://tinyurl.com/6gxh69) just states what the situation is in Ireland and hardly makes the person who wrote it an expert.
Informed opinion?
Which third level institution were you employed by?
Hayes brought up segregation, baby, not me. That’s his solution, and it’s a racist one.
Segregation. Can you fucking believe it? I actually spent more than one class last month teaching the American Civil Rights movement to a Polish leaving cert student of mine.
Fine Gael. Shower of cunts.
And yeah, the hijab quote is wonderful. Sums up the intellectual paucity of fine Gael, a party whose idea of fun is a night at home in front of the TV with a blow-up sex doll of Milton Friedman and a packet of Pringles.
The funniest part of all of this, though, is that Hayes will never get to be Education minister, for the simple reason that Fine Gael have absolutely no fucking interest in education. They wouldn’t know what to do if they were put in charge of education. I mean, remember the free laptops last year? What. a. fucking. joke.
No. For FG to get into power, they´re going to have to form a coalition with somebody, and the only real candidate is Labour. So. What will FG do with education? - they´ll dump it on to Labour, cut the budget, and let the labour minister take the flack.
It’s because of this that the reason behind Hayes’ comments is so fucking clear. It has nothing to do with education and everything to do with drumming up anti-immigrant sentiment, as the rest of the Fine Gael young cunts have been doing for the past couple of years.
Mr. Soup, I said email the people if you want the information ‘cos as i said I don’t have the facts to hand. As I said, talk to the experts. One of the pdfs is to a powerpoint presentation , but I thought it might be useful for someone interested in the topic. You know, that they’d see it for what it is - a powerpoint presentation - but use that to follow up some of the references she mentions, maybe get in touch, you know, enquire. But there you go. I was wrong. Too much trouble for you? Too taxing maybe? Sorry about that. I’ll try to use something by Robert L. May next time.
By the way, soupy baby, in case you didn’t notice, the start of this post has a cartoon of a man trying to stick his tongue into a wind fan. Did that not, well, flag for you the type of post this was going to be? what was the interior monologue? “Well, I saw the picture of Peter Griffin, so naturally I expected a rigorous scientific investigation, but instead I got *gasp* links to general comments about education in Ireland! Is this what happens on blogs? I must sit down and write a stiff letter to Madam in the Irish Times. Oh! And darling, leave the bay windows open, and give the Friedman doll a puff, he’s starting to sagg.”
I hate to burst your bubble, auwl souperino, but this is a blog. With cartoons. As regards peer-review, “when I makes tea, I makes tea, and when I makes water, I makes water.”
Conor, suggesting that streaming based on language proficiency is racist is about as logic as claim from some folks in the states screaming about the overwhelming of the white race due to the increasing number of Hispanics. Anyway, we all know you’re still smarting from the Green’s taking your cuddle up spot next to FF.
Hayes brought up segregation. He used the word. He was not misquoted. And as I said, because Fine Gael have absolutely no intention of going anywhere near education in any possible future coalition, this is all about the young micks in Fine Gael who have come to the conclusion that their future lies with a further move to the right.
Segregation, baby. in this day and age. For fucks sake.
By the way, is a free laptop STILL part of Fine Gael education policy?
what other masterful gems lie in that intellectual colossus that is, gasp, THE TRIBE OF THE GAELS.
Segregation, For the non gaelicly-gaels, for black students, for Oriental students, for East European students, for South American students. Can you fucking believe it?
Their parents’ tax money, well, no segregation there. Oh God no. That stays with the government. Over the past ten years, it adds up to fucking billions. And what will Fine Gael give them for all of that money? Fucking segregation.
Immigrants, of course, pay billions in tax, but don’t have a say in how that tax money is spent, as they don’t have a vote in Dail elections. Makes a racist political stance all the more sweet, no?
Of course, now we have Senator Fidelma Healy-Eames calling for language tests at fucking airports and ports!
What a lovely bunch of lads, the ‘aul tribe of the gaels.
By the way, I can see the comments already. “Well, at least Senator Fidelma’s comments have prompted some debate about language testing at airports and ports…”
Oh, the contribution of Senator Fidelma Healy-Eames is guff and no mistake but she is prone to press release and regret. I have one from a few year ago that didn’t make any sort of coherent sense at all.
As for “Immigrants, of course, pay billions in tax, but don’t have a say in how that tax money is spent, as they don’t have a vote in Dail elections. Makes a racist political stance all the more sweet, no?” Richard Bruton proposed that we have a process that would allow people to become residents and be able to vote after being here for 3/5 years. What did the left suggest we do to allow people make Ireland their fully home? Of that’s right ye reminded everyone of the 40 million Poles. Just a quick geography lesson I supposed. And when is it ye plan to get around to getting those who think left to vote left?
I take it that the fact that you’ve given up on defending Hayes - and not even bothering to defend Auwl Fidelma - means that you agree that both are talking complete and utter bollicks.
And I’m not a member of the Labour party, Dan, nor do I campaign for the Labour party. In fact, I’m not a member of any political party. And I don’t campaign. I put up cartoons of Peter Griffin sticking his tongue into wind fans, though, and I use “cunt” a lot. Not really sure how much of a left-wing campaigner that makes me. Cheers though for thinking (albeit wrongly) that somehow I am. Anyway, You can slag off the labour party and left wing politics to your heart’s content in your comments, baby, it’s no difference to me. Knock yourself out. Lord knows I’m going to take the piss out of the right-wing fuckwits in Fine Gael.
I wasn’t going to defend the bould Fidelma, but since you’re not actually attacking what Hayes was suggestting so much as doing a “segregation and racism oh my!” routine then what do I need to defend him from. Apologies, if I’m thought you were a left leaning voter, or even a voter - 100% my mistake.
Has twenty major had a complete sense of humour removal and renamed himself conor mccabe?
Typical fucking sindo response
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/missing-link-in-the-segregation-debate-1462104.html
Voting Works…
While it may appear that only over this campaign has Irish hip hop emerged as a political force with plenty of videos, (including local ones), the reality is of course very different. Back in the early to mid 90s, much……