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A 73-YEAR-old grandmother is going on hunger strike to protest against the country’s climate change policies.
Patricia Devlin – who is originally from Australia, but has lived in Monasterevin, Co Kildare, for 20 years – is taking on the four-day strike in hopes of meeting Environment Minister Richard Bruton and calling on him to implement tougher policies to tackle the climate emergency.
Launching her hunger strike outside the gates of Leinster House today, Ms Devlin kicked off a week-long global action by Extinction Rebellion, which campaigns against the current government’s climate polices, which they say will not meet environmental targets.
Ms Devlin, holding photos of her two grandchildren – Ollie, four, and baby Liam – said she has been an environmental activist off and on for 40 years, and was sparked back into action after becoming a grandmother.
“Since my grandchildren, they have just awakened in me a whole wonder at life. Being a parent is great but being a grandparent is just amazing,” she said.
“You’ve got time to reflect on life in these little people and, knowing what’s happening with climate change, I really fear for what kind of life will my grandsons have. Will they have a chance to have grandchildren like me?
“My emotion is wrapped up in fear that they won’t enjoy the same blessings that we have.”
Ms Devlin said she is blessed with good health for her age, and has done 48-hour fasts before.
“I think sometimes it’s meant to be, maybe I’ve been blessed with good health so that I can do this action at 73,” she said.
“I looked at the tradition of hunger striking, which dates back to pre-Christian times, particularly in Ireland, and that’s why it appealed to me.
“This particular action is a really classic way of the vulnerable speaking to power, so I’m hoping I can speak to Minister Bruton and it might be a good way to get him out of the little hermit shell he might be in.
“I’m going to be here until Sunday afternoon but if Minister Bruton wants to meet me before then I’ve achieved my goal.
“To go through with him the aims of Extinction Rebellion, and tell the truth, we need a lot more explanation and truth telling. I don’t think our climate change plan is going to be able to meet the targets, the aims are too low.
“We need a just transition, we need to make sure we bring everyone with us.
“Usually the poorest and most marginalised have an unfair burden to carry, and we’ve seen that with the closure of the Bord Na Mona bogs.
So far only six million euro has been set aside for climate change. They gave 16 million euro to the greyhounds, so it’s not hard to see where we’re at, really, it’s not good enough.
Much of this year’s climate activism has been sparked by children and young people, and Ms Devlin said she believes older generations also have a duty to protect the planet.
“One of my regrets is that I didn’t keep it up. Maybe if I did this 20 years ago and did it seriously then maybe I wouldn’t need to be here today,” she said.
“Again, in the Christian tradition fasting has been used for atonement, and maybe that’s worth thinking about for my generation.
“I think they should do it if they see the sense in it, I think all grandparents must be worried.”
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How about addressing the real issues with in the profession: offers no career progression, badly paid, poorly resourced, it’s (anecdotally) difficult to even get a permanent role and its not even full time.
@Cheeky Bums:
Pro-rata it’s very well paid – how many other professionals get so much time off?
@mattoid: Time off is irrelevant. Newly qualified teachers get paid dirt, which is why many have left and are not taking up courses, coupled with the fact that post grads have got more expensive and longer. Ultimately, the children suffer whether it be having less able teachers or them not being there to actually teach them.
@Bruce van der Gutschmitzer: are you kidding me? Newly qualified teachers start on €35k.. that’s a lot more than other professions. And it’s not just teachers that struggle to get permanent jobs these days. So sick of all this poor teacher nonsense
@Deirdre: €35k is an absolute lie, hardly any teachers have been made permenent since the start of the official recession 11 years ago. You obviously have a problem with teachers and that’s fine but don’t lie about points introducing them as “facts”.
@Cheeky Bums: when you take into account the time off, pension , yearly increments, job security once permanent etc it’s not badly paid.
@Bruce van der Gutschmitzer:
There is not a recruitment issue in teaching – far from it.
As the original commenter pointed out, it’s extremely difficult for newly qualified teachers to get a permanent position as they’re so sought after. If people are leaving the profession it’s because of competition for positions, not poor terms and conditions.
A bit disingenuous to suggest otherwise to be honest.
@mattoid: I’m saying that they are leaving the country for the Emirates, Australia, NZ etc as it is better paid, they can have a better standard of living and save for a deposit which they find a lot more difficult if living at home. Same goes for nurses. Massive retention issues as they are paid dirt.
@Mrs M: these threads quickly turn into whataboutery and begrudgery! Every state has a basic pension as a means to entice, most make their own contributions so it’s not ‘gold plated’ like everyone likes to tell themselves. Increments had been frozen for years are minimal for NQTs. When you consider someone who qualified in 2011 will lose out on 100k over their career than someone who qualified the year before, increments mean nothing.
@mattoid: If a school has a Home Economics teacher going out on maternity leave, they will find it almost impossible to get someone in to replace her. There is most definitely a shortage of Home Economics teachers. It is extremely difficult to get modern foreign language teachers, maths teachers, chemistry teachers, physics teachers and Irish teachers. Just wait until the department rolls out the new Leaving certificate IT syllabus. They will have some fun trying to find IT graduates to teach that too.
@Bruce van der Gutschmitzer:
“Massive retention issues”
Any proof of that?? Why is it so hard to secure a permanent teaching job?
@mattoid: read the news! A simple Google search Sheesh! Simon Harris had a conference on retaining nurses. They were being recruited before they finished their degrees. The dog in the street can see there’s a severe lack of teachers as they have been leaving in their drives the last decade. Your attitude highlights your ignorance of the situation like others in this thread. My advice don’t comment on what u don’t know.
@mattoid: Teachers are given a CID in a school if they meet the following conditions. The CID essentially means that they are permanent in that school only. If they leave a school the leave the CID too.
In order to get CID, all of the following must be met:
1. They must find a teaching job in a school. This can be any amount of teaching time from 40 minutes up to 22 hours.
2. The hours on their time table MUST be their own hours. (Maternity leave cover or sick leave cover doesn’t count, however career break cover does).
3. After the first year of work, they MUST re-interview for the job for year two.
4. If school management want to hire someone else at this time, they can and the original teacher leaves the school and goes back to step one on this list.
5. Only when they complete two full school years, in the same school with their own teaching hours for both years, will they be granted CID. The CID will be for the number of hours they had on their timetable during the 2nd year in the school, which may not be a full timetable.
Their pay will be based on the number of hours they teach. Full time table of 22 hours = full pay. Half time table of 11 hours = half pay and so on. Very many newly qualified teachers are not teaching a full 22 hour time table and so are not getting a full paycheck.
The lack of a full timetable and therefore a full salary causes people to move elsewhere for more hours, and therefore causes them to start the journey to CID again.
If is sounds easy, don’t be fooled.
@mattoid: If you gross it up then it’s a good salary but when it comes to actually paying the bills, the salary is pretty crummy.
@Bruce van der Gutschmitzer:
I know there are massive retention issues for nurses. I don’t see the same issues with teaching though – where are all the unfilled positions??
@mattoid: In the Dáil, I suppose. There seem to be a lot of substitutes who would like a permanent teaching job, though.
@mattoid: Time off?!!! Do you work well into the evening to make sure your lessons run smoothly. Do you spend chunks of your holiday tweaking schemes of work and making sure you’re up to date with the latest developments. The job is exhausting and you give your all. It’s not like back in the 1970s when many old school types inhabited our schools and didn’t give a damn. Nowadays teachers engage fully with the job and the responsibility. I’d be a millionaire if I was paid for the hours I work.
@mattoid: Jesus, like talking to a mgld wall!! Go back to school and learn some comprehension
You really thing students get grinds because of a teacher shortfall ?
@RJ: that’s the crux of this issue. parents need grinds because the teachers don’t have the competence (or drive) needed to fully teach the curriculum, whereas one or two weeks with a professional teacher in grinds seems to be required to meet the necessary need to get to college. meanwhile, teachers (actually, just their unions) biggest issue with this is personal compensation for any change to improve the quality of their members, and ensure control over any new full time members.
@Gulliver Foyle: Grinds are merely a product of a free economy (which I support completely). Parents will always try to do the very best for their children, and will get grinds for them if they think it will help. You could have an under-performing child with the best teacher whose parents choose to get grinds in an attempt to give the child a better chance. Nothing to do with anything, nor anyone else’s business.
Run down the state schools so people are forced to buy private lessons. Same model as the health service. Run it down and have almost 800,000 on waiting lists so people are forced to buy private healthcare. Pattern there do you think?
THERE IS NO TEACHER SHORTAGE IN THIS COUNTRY but there will be soon as older teachers have been given incentives to retire to save money for the state & there are less students taking up teaching courses. There’s a teacher shortage in Dublin as they are building new schools there as part of the economic bubble being created in the capital but it’s too expensive for teachers to live there. Everywhere else has plenty of newish teachers but schools are only using them as subs or 1yr contracts. Teachers have zero rights in a first yr contract & only get backed by unions if they get a 2nd yr contract. Principals want more teachers in the system so they have access to more slave labour without having to risk bringing the same teacher back for a 2nd contract which will impact on school budgets
@John Mullin: It’s no wonder there are less students taking up teaching courses. They see their older siblings & friends going from school to school every year with no job security, spending all of an UNPAID summer applying for posts in schools that don’t have the decency to reply in most cases. House prices are going back up but it doesn’t matter as they have no chance of getting ANY mortgage without permanency. Several teachers nationally have been subbing for 11yrs. If they do get some hrs in a school, Principals will ask them to cover classes for free in many cases which denies another teacher subbing hrs thinking they will get a further contract the following year which they don’t. For those of you that are complaining about their “cushy” jobs why don’t you become teachers yourselves?
It’s difficult to be bothered. First of all, the attitude of some schools is that they just want student, perhaps those of a certain type for funding and don’t care how much chaos it causes. I kept missing out on the post grad course by a point or two, then they made it a two year master’s costing €10000. Therefore I went a different direction.
@Ashling Fenton: I don’t think you get the return of investment of €5k a year that the post grad opens up for you. what is your interest area in teaching? is it in demand?
I’m here this morning thinking of that young girl that was on the radio last week waking up in a hotel room, I hope she is doing well.
@Genius 80s+: at least she’s not waking up after sleeping on the ground on a card board box.
@Siobhán Ni Mhurchú: I suppose if she WAS in a cardboard box, you’d say ‘At least she’s waking up’. Not exactly full of empathy are you?
@Paraic: don’t be riduclous. Maybe spare a thought for those actually living on the streets .
@Siobhán Ni Mhurchú: That’s very generous from you, you must be so proud of yourself.
In my experience, it’s underperformance of teachers that cause parents to have to pay out for private lessons, not lack of teachers. Years in the same job, dealing with all sorts of kids and issues can cause burnout and this will affect each and every child. Should this be “a job for life?”, with zero accountability and carry on regardless? The old saying, “familiarity breeds contempt “ may also apply in these situations. How is a child supposed to better themselves without the proper help and encouragement when there can be a lack of interest or control in a class? The only way is with outside help like grinds and this ,to me indicates a major failure in our educational system.
I got grinds not because my parents were loaded but because I had several woefully incompetent teachers. Most are still teaching, though one left to become a property developer (barely showed up the last year)
Maybe the Union will address that.
Why are over 500 secondary school teachers meeting on a school day to discuss a shortage of teachers in the classroom?
@Elaine Ni Churrain: NO NO NO. We do NOT have 500 teachers meeting on a school day; We have 500 PRINCIPALS and Deputy Principals meeting, 95% of whom haven’t stood in the classroom for years…and are on huge money, with now 3 deputies + 1 Principal in many schools- and yet the teaching foot soldiers doing more and more of their work. A Joke..
Two out three of our kids do grinds, we are not flash or that well off and don’t need preached about it.
It was the teachers who had a couldn’t care less attitude they seemed happy to let a pupil who wanted to learn or improve become demotivated . We had one teacher out sick for the whole year on full pay? But returned in the last month of the year as it would have affected her performance review and then salary. Such motivation!
@Brian Smith:
“We had one teacher out sick for the whole year on full pay?”
Teachers with a serious illness such as cancer are not allowed to work. They cannot return to work until they have been given medical clearance to return. But good job to you for being sympathetic towards them and what ever was wrong with them.
They would have been on three months on full pay, then three months on half pay. After 6 months then it is the remaining time off sick on no pay. Any time off sick in the next 3-4 years would then be unpaid.
“But returned in the last month of the year as it would have affected her performance review and then salary”
They were most likely medically cleared to return to work.
@Gerard McDermott: ye, you believe that, no one else does.
@Brian Smith:
“ye, you believe that, no one else does.”
Wow, great response.
@Gerard McDermott: yes, it’s up there with the old national school yard favorite … “you’re one too!” Conclusive evidence backing up that statement alright.
Life is filled with differences between haves and have-nots, it is not just about schooling. To become or remain a ‘have’ you have to work hard and not expect someone else to do it for you. The world is filled with stories of those who started with nothing and got to the top. It is harder to start from nothing but it is achievable. Some people spend more time whining that actually doing
God forbid there were problems and inequality in our “fair” exam system……
Equality of Opportunity ??? Not on your life.
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