All in favour of the greater good – once it’s good for us

A Different View with Dave O’Connell

There was a time when I worried about little more than childcare and the children’s allowance was the second thing I’d look for in the budget after checking if there was any increase in the price of the pint.

Then it was the cost of school books, the weight of those books and the emphasis on rote learning at second level; now it’s moving from that into the cost of ‘free’ third-level education and employment opportunities for young people.

I used to rant on for hours about the fact that childcare was costing more than the mortgage and there was no recognition of this from Government.

Days on end were lost with the stress of finding child minders and babysitters, or doing deals with other harassed parents to take their sprogs this Thursday so they’d mind yours in two Thursdays’ time.

People gently left the space when I started off on another childcare rant, as though the state had somehow forced us to have children and now wasn’t prepared to face up to its responsibility.

But the years have passed and no longer do I give a second thought to the cost of crèches or child minding – and where once I’d have been thrilled with the notion of free GP care for the under sixes, it now sticks in my craw that a new generation are benefitting from a break that we didn’t get.

Ditto free childcare in the run-up to primary school – of course it’s a great idea but it’s no good to me.

I’d prefer if they made third-level actually free and if they funding second-level to a point where schools didn’t have to spend half their time with the begging bowl out to make ends meet.

But these chalices too will pass and nothing would bother me more in the future than to see the Government accept that I was right all along and it was now time to put millions into ensuring education is actually free.

Because by then I’ll be ranting on about the meagre pensions we’re have to live on because the Government frittered away the entire pot to pay off the German bond holders and bail out Anglo-Irish Bank.

And I know I’m not the only one; because the simple truth is that we see no contradiction in claiming to recognise to the common good when all we really want to see prosper is ourselves.

It’s the same in reverse – we instantly agree that cuts must happen, savings must be made, rationalisation must take place….but only if it doesn’t affect us directly.

Given the advances in technology, we may not actually need as many Garda stations or post offices or even schools as we once had – but woe betide if it’s our own facilities that suffer.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.