Just Mary (10 page)

One morning, I was in the kitchen early, ironing. It always seemed that confidences were exchanged between me and my family when I was ironing. I suppose whilst I was physically working, my mind
was free and I always enjoyed these interludes when one or other of my sons would come to me with something to say. On this occasion, Feargal came to me and said, ‘Ma, I am not going back to
college. I hate it. I am really lonely. I don’t know anyone. It’s huge and I want to be at home!’ He was clearly very upset.

For a moment, I was dumbstruck. What should I say? I remembered my own boarding school days when I hated being away, and Feargal and Aengus had been brought up very much in the heart of a hectic
but loving family. Somehow, inspiration came, and I said, ‘Stay on until Christmas and we’ll see what you feel like then. If you still don’t like it, then you don’t have to
go back. We’ll find some other way of furthering your career.’ I thought perhaps he could go to University College, Galway as a day student, travelling there and back on the train.
There was a good rail connection. I said all this to him, and concluded, ‘Just stick it out until Christmas and then we’ll have a full talk again about it.’ He seemed satisfied
with this pragmatic suggestion and went back to college happily enough.

Feargal continued to come home every weekend, but he never again mentioned the fact that he wanted to leave. Christmas came and Christmas went, and he began to talk about people he had met, pals
he had made, clubs he had joined, and I think the whole of the 14,000-strong student body of
UCD
lost its strangeness for him and he became attuned, acclimatised and
absorbed by being part of that fine institute. In fact, at a certain point during his college days, Feargal and I set up an apartment together in Dublin for a while, as I was based there so much
for work. It worked out very well and I was delighted, as I had him for company. Although of course he wasn’t wanting to be always sitting in with his Ma! But we got on very well.

I tell the story because so often things are said and done in haste, and bridges are crossed which need not be. I think the Holy Spirit put the idea in my mind of how to meet that little crisis
in a young man’s mind and in his mum’s mind. Feargal’s love affair continued, while Aengus was proving to be the typical rebellious teenager. He liked bright lights; he wanted to
be in the happening places. He had a number of friends who were calling and ringing and going places all the time, and he provided many a heartache for Enda and me, particularly when he started to
go out to teenage parties and dances. I remember waiting up until two and three in the morning, but what parent has not done so? What parent doesn’t worry as to the possible outcome for their
teenager of that night’s festivities?

I cannot emphasise how much Enda contributed to my well-being throughout my career in politics, and especially during my ministerial life, when the pressure was intense. I was able to come home
every weekend to him, knowing that he had kept the home fires burning, both literally and metaphorically. He was there for the family and he was there for
me
. What a relief it always was,
to come home to him from what was a hectic, overcrowded schedule. For all of us as a family, he was the ballast throughout the years.

There were some very fortuitous developments in Enda’s own career, which he took full advantage of to be able to support me in mine. He spent a number of happy years at Jacob’s, as I
have mentioned. Then, in 1975, he got the opportunity to buy into a local company, Midland Oil, with a man called Don Beddy. Don was offering Enda a managing role but also the chance to be a
part-owner of the company. There was much discussion in the family about it. He would be leaving a safe, regular job with Jacob’s, who were such good employers: it was clearly a big risk to
take.

Midland Oil was a huge decision for Enda, but it paid off and worked out very well, both in terms of his own career and in terms of our family life. Now it’s a modern thing that guys are
‘house-husbands’, but Enda’s job meant that he could be at home every evening when the boys needed him — to help them with their night study, to be collected and brought to
rugby,
GAA
, scouts and all the rest. For me, it was a great source of contentment to know that he was at home and the kids were in good hands. At the time and in later
years, I still had a lot of angst sometimes, about whether I had neglected the boys. But it seems that I — we — didn’t, as they have both turned out fine. The proof of it all, if
indeed proof can be taken from it, is that our two sons have grown up to be sensible, well-adjusted young men. They married and have families and appear to be getting on with their lives. I suppose
that is the most any parent can work for and hope for at the end of the day.

Chapter
5

I
t was the late 1980s and I was getting dug in at Education in Marlborough Street. I quickly set myself the task of getting to know all of the main
players both internally, in the Department, and externally, in the various teachers’ unions, parents’ groups, the schools, the lobby groups and the universities. I loved it all and was
determined to get ahead, to be progressive, and to make my name — all worthy goals for an ambitious politician. I knew early on in my stint at Marlborough Street that money was going to be
very tight and that there would be no let-up in the financial constraints on the Department. Having staved off the threat of a change in the Pupil/Teacher Ratio, I cast about in my mind and spent
time talking with all the various officials and interest groups about my wish to move forward in a developmental way which might not necessarily cost money — at least not upfront!

One of the first initiatives I settled upon was the refocusing of the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (
NCCA
), which had been set up by my predecessor,
Gemma Hussey. Curriculum development is always a worthwhile undertaking in education, and I noted with interest last year that one of the first things Ruairi Quinn, the present Minister for
Education, did when he came into office was to take action on the same issue — a wise move. Ably advised by Margaret Walsh, I asked Dr Ed Walsh to remain on as Chairperson of the
NCCA
, a decision also enthusiastically backed by Charlie Haughey. I was careful to heed as well Margaret’s suggestion that it would be a good idea to appoint members of the
various teachers’ unions to the sub-boards of the
NCCA
. All of this in place, we set forth on a programme of curriculum reform, firstly at Intermediate level.

There had been for some time a series of examinations at secondary level — the Group Certificate and the Inter Certificate. The proposal was to merge both of these into one examination. I
remember well the day Dr Ed Walsh came to see me in Dáil Éireann to discuss what we should call this new intermediate-level examination. Together, we tossed back and forth various
suggestions for names and eventually came up with the name ‘Junior Cert’, which tied in nicely with the Leaving Cert. As we then moved towards formalising this new development, the
marvellous Chief Executive of the
NCCA
, Albert O’Ceallaigh, was immensely helpful. He had a sure and light touch in all of these matters but he was also strongly
professional. He guided the
NCCA
through this process at a very difficult time, and it was a good news story amidst the financial and social gloom and doom which prevailed
at the time.

My Opposition Spokesperson was now George Bermingham, a Fine Gael
TD
for Dublin North-Central, who was thoughtful in his Dáil utterances — far more
considered and temperate, I felt, than I had been when in his position a few years back. It is funny how small utterances stick in your mind. George’s reaction when I unfolded the
NCCA
developments and the new plan for the Junior Cert, was ‘Two cheers for the
NCCA
in this regard!’ I thought it was a well-judged and
generous response. George Bermingham later left parliamentary politics and is now a distinguished and well-respected judge.

Around this time, as well as such formal developments, I was able to bring forward another important measure, which gave me great delight then and continues to do so now when I hear mention of
it — the system of the Home–School Liaison Teacher. This marks in my mind a wonderful milestone in my odyssey within the Department of Education and indeed Irish public life.

It all started when a certain Concepta Connaghty came to see me out of the blue in Marlborough Street one day. (This lady has since passed away.) This was a time when all the huge difficulties
within the large inner and outer city primary schools were beginning to emerge, due to growing numbers of one-parent families and those living on the breadline. A teacher based in Tallaght, Ms
Connaghty had been working with the children in such schools for some time and, as she told me, she saw a great need in these environments for a ‘developmental’ type of teacher —
someone who would be attached to a school but not in a teaching capacity. He or she would be there to liaise between the school and the parent or parents, in situations where a child was not making
a fist of school or indeed in some cases not turning up for lessons at all. In other words, to focus on children who might later go on to fail in the system and of whom a high proportion were at
risk of ending up as drop-outs and misfits, perhaps joining gangs and turning to criminal activity. I thought the idea was an excellent one. I gave it all some further consideration and I then
spoke to Tom Gillen, the then Assistant Secretary in charge of Primary Education. Tom agreed that it would be a very worthwhile initiative to explore, and we prepared a Memorandum for
Government.

I must digress here slightly to explain that, if a member of Cabinet has a developmental idea or proposal which he or she wants to bring to Cabinet for consideration, a Memorandum must be
prepared and then circulated to each serving Cabinet Member, who will give their own feedback on it at the next Cabinet meeting. Particularly in the straitened circumstances of the late 1980s, the
proposing Minister would always await these responses with trepidation, especially with regard to the presiding Minister for Finance and his Department. They were always deemed to be the most
dangerous ones because they were always against everything! Of course I fully understood that then and I fully understand it now: the job of the Department of Finance is to try to keep the country
on an even financial keel, to keep the spending in the various Ministries under control and to put forward their own stringent views. It was ever thus and it will always be thus.

At that time we were in a period in which Memorandums in general were being massively cut back on and so, once I had circulated my proposal to all of my colleagues, I sallied off to Cabinet,
armed with my file and all my background information, little expecting that I would find any echoes of approval. Sure enough, when my turn came to bring up the issue, the Taoiseach turned to me and
said, ‘What is this Memorandum about, Mary? Is it more teachers?’

Ray MacSharry saw his opening, and pounced. ‘Yes Taoiseach,’ he chimed, ‘more teachers and these ones won’t even
teach
!’

There was a kind of audible gasp around the table at my sheer effrontery, but that little bold streak in me kept going in spite of it all. I reddened up at all the attention, but I looked at the
Taoiseach and caught his eye.

‘Let Mary explain, Ray,’ he said. ‘Let’s hear her idea.’

So I ploughed on and explained as best I could: that children in disadvantaged areas would benefit greatly, that this could help to combat some of the difficulties in our troubled urban
districts, and so on. Charlie listened carefully, nodded his head once or twice and he then said to me directly, ‘Could this be done in a pilot way? Could you introduce these home —
whatever you call them — liaison people, let’s say, in two urban and rural areas? And if it works, build from there?’

‘Yes, yes!’ I replied, delighted. Once more, I had followed my ‘seize the day’ strategy and it had worked. So I went back triumphantly to my Department, and we piloted
the scheme in South Dublin, where Concepta Connaghty worked, and in a large rural school too, and ten others besides. We started with these twelve schools, and the initiative grew from there and
soon became mainstream.

It almost goes without saying that the
INTO
were fully in favour. After all, it meant more teachers, albeit not of the teaching kind, but it also meant that their care
for disadvantaged pupils would be improved. To give that particular union their due, this was always their aim: to do their very best for the pupils. Of course, they wanted to do their utmost for
their trade union members as well, but often, as in this instance, the two aims could overlap and if so, it was always a happy outcome.

After seeing through two budgets, Ray MacSharry was appointed to the post of European Commissioner in Brussels, a job he was happy to accept, while Albert Reynolds would become Minister for
Finance.