Letters to the editor: We need a more holistic approach to college applications than CAO
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Once again, the CAO season is approaching, and students will begin selecting their main and ‘just in case’ courses like punters filling out a Lotto slip. If students don’t get their main course, they will end up doing something else. Whatever happened to going for your dream vocation?
If a student is brave enough to declare, “I want this and only this”, that level of drive and ambition should be encouraged, not watered down to the prospect of “we’ll see what points you get”.
When a student accepts a place on their number 2 choice, what happens to the students who had those courses as their number 1? They will find themselves selecting a course lower on their list too; and it will trickle down from student to student, all doing courses they are not entirely satisfied with.
CAO points fluctuate from year to year. Depending on the latest trends and fashionable careers, one year’s highest points could be another year’s lowest. So, one year the student is an absolute failure and the next a glowing success. Should students keep waiting year after year for their points to come down?
Students’ ambitions should be encouraged individually and not as part of some statistical game of probability. They shouldn’t have to settle for second best or do a course just because that’s the best offer they get.
If a student believes they have an academic vocation they should be given the opportunity to pursue it. Perhaps a more holistic approach to college applications is necessary.
So we learned in the past week of the failure of former minister for health Stephen Donnelly to put 20c on the price of a pint in the last budget despite him giving all the right reasons as to why it should be done. Mr Donnelly said alcohol had “major public health implications” and was to blame for “a considerable burden of health, social and economic harm at individual, family and societal levels”.
He said alcohol consumption levels in 2023 were “well above” objectives laid out under the Public Health Act. Mr Chambers refused to allow the price increase.
Something that was brought to my attention over the Christmas period is the fact that some pubs/nightclubs increase the price of alcohol in their premises as the night goes on. Not sure of the legality of this practice. Also publicans encourage the consumption of alcohol in pubs “a safe environment “ but that doesn’t mean that customers can’t binge drink in a pub.
Newspaper reports on the possibility of Sinn Féin’s Conor Murphy, MLA in Northern Ireland, might flip his current commitment to Stormont and swap his British allegiance for a seat sought in our Upper House, the Senate.
This is yet another Sinn Féin ploy to further its united Ireland dream, according to Conor, who hopes to use his time in Dublin, if he gets lucky, to devote himself to this.
The problem with this is that just because Sinn Féin promotes the idea of Ireland “becoming one”, does not mean for a minute it’s going to happen if it says it often enough.
And to what possible solution could such lobbying be to the benefit of all of the people on this island, particularly the one and a half million British loyalists who do not want such a poll to proceed?
There is much more to an ‘all-Ireland’ concept than simply removing the border from the map.
Conor Murphy, being far removed from our “Free State” politics, might not be aware that all the brow-beating from our Dáil politicians and opposition down here, to vote for referendums in the way they demanded of us, backfired on them.
We thought for ourselves, as intelligent citizens will, and did the opposite in a quiet victory for the clear will and quiet democracy of free choice.
Because any political party may make a lot noise about a favourite hobby-horse, does it mean that what people are told to do is sensible or correct?
We are entitled to prioritise for ourselves our hopes and dreams, and also know when to separate reality from the tired old dreams of yesteryear. But welcome to Dublin if it works out for you, Conor.
My new year’s resolution is to not make a new year’s resolution.
Scientists believe that if you get to what they call the Event Horizon of a black hole strange things begin to happen.
Similarly if you get too close to a billionaire you will reach what might be termed their sphere of influence, where even if time and space isn’t interfered with, other happenings with equally worse effects on the human mind start to manifest among which is a totally warped sense of morality.
After you have gone past the point of no return, spaghettification of your reputation isn’t all you will have to worry about.
Like real black holes, the only thing that escapes is information.
Just ask those who orbited too close to Epstein, Al-Fayed, Maxwell or the Bunga Bunga Kid himself.
Y’all might want to bear that in mind when one of them asks you to attend the launch of his latest rocket into the great blue yonder, or when you might feel the need to ask one of them to be at whatever you’re launching yourself.
Maybe some people need to be reminded, that just like the universe, every country in the world now boasts an economic black hole that can be measured in billions, including our own sceptred isle weighing in at a hefty €281,000,000,000 or so.
Naturally enough as the self-proclaimed world leaders in everything, our American cousins are leading the field with a whopping one measuring all of $35+ trillions.
To put that in proper perspective, are we all going to end up in a Big Freeze or a Big Crunch?
Throughout the general election campaign, we heard many voters expressing their frustration at disability services, highlighting the long waiting times for therapies, and a lack of supports for children with additional needs.
There’s currently about 110,000 children waiting on therapies.
The waiting list on an assessment of need went from 10,000 in September to 13,000 in November. I recently became aware of a project in Kildare town of a new state-of-the-art centre that would provide therapies and services to children.
It’s currently half-built and is at a complete standstill since October due to an issue over funding. Ironically, this funding was approved by the outgoing government.
The project in Kildare town is presently located on a two and half acre site, just at the entrance to the town where one finds an incomplete shell of a building where there is hoarding around the outside. This was supposed to be the National Child Development Centre in Kildare.
Apparently this building had been planned since 2021 and the state approved €9.6m to build it.
I find it utterly appalling to learn that there are now tens of thousands of children with additional needs on waiting lists for services like speech and language therapy, occupational therapy and assessments that children might need that would unlock educational supports for them.
We now know that these children can be waiting two, three, four, five and more years for these services.
These long protracted waiting periods will sadly be very detrimental to their development. One senses that the National Child Development Centre in Kildare was to be a beacon of hope for all of the families waiting for these essential services.
I find it utterly disgraceful when I hear that parents of children with disabilities having to go public over the lack of access to vital therapies around the country.
May I respectfully remind the new government that talk is cheap and words are plentiful. Deeds are now precious in the resolving of this imbroglio.