Archive for the ‘ Wexford ’ Category

God Save the Queen

At the weekend the Byrne Perry School opened with an address by Fine Gael TD, Fergus O’Dowd.

The title of the Byrne Perry School for this year was Entwined Histories II: Ireland, France and America however leaving aside one tenuous link to the theme Mr. O’Dowd’s speech decided to focus more on the current state of play in Irish politics.

He began for praising the current government stating that David Cameron’s apology in the House of Commons following the publication of the Saville Inquiry Report into the unjustifiable deaths in Derry bon Bloody Sunday was “a very welcome development indeed.”

He went on to say that the proposed visit by the Queen to these shores would be “the final chapter” in the long and previously bitter relationship between our two countries.

While it is fair to say that the adult and logical thing would be for the head of state of the UK to come and visit Ireland. However while a visit by David Cameron would be welcomed by most if not all people in this country, a visit by the Queen will cause serious division in the country and rather than becoming the “final chapter” in the relationship, will cause it to revert back to the bitter old days.

I have no problem with the Queen. The people of the United Kingdom are entitled to have a monarch as their head of state – that’s their prerogative. However because the Queen is a figurehead and has no real influence on the social, economic or business dealing of ‘her’ country I cannot see the value in inviting her to this country.

Why Brian Cowen saw it fit to issue an invitation on behalf of his country last week is beyond me. What will this visit achieve?

The only outcome of such a visit will be to stir up old resentments in people at a time when the country seems to be finally moving on. While the Republican movement in the south of Ireland is not as strong as it was, this move by out Taoiseach is surely going to wake within certain people those feelings they have not thought about in many years.

What is Queen Elizabeth going to do here in Ireland? A tour of the famine memorials around the country perhaps? A visit to some restored workhouses? Surely not.

I cannot imagine Lizzie travelling in an open top car down O’Connell Street with crowds lining Dublin’s main thoroughfare waving little Union Jacks and holding their children up just to get a glimpse of this bejewelled monarch.

The real difficulty that I have about a royal visit to these shores however is much more mundane – the cost. How much will it cost to bring the royal family (and the corgi’s of course) over to Ireland?

For, lest we forget, the cost of a royal visit will be borne by the people of Ireland. The security detail, gardaí, accommodation, travel, food, petrol, dog food….well you get the picture.

I don’t need to remind you that the country isn’t exactly cash rich at the moment and so why not spend the money on something of more value. Why not invite David Cameron and his lap dog Nick Clegg over so they could discuss the creation of business links and economic policies?

Instead there will be discussions on Harry’s latest faux pas in a Nazi uniform and the impending nuptials of William – you know the really important matters.

While a visit by the Queen to a British town would be a real boon for the local economy, I cannot see shops in Dublin selling out of replica mugs and plates with the Queen’s visage on them.

No, there is no up-side to this proposed visit and rather than being the final chapter in the relationship it will provoke and incite the bitterness that we thought had been forgotten and return us – hopefully only briefly – to the bad old days of them against us.

2010
07/16
CATEGORY
The Gorey Details
Wexford
TAGS




Leave a comment

The Deputy shoots himself in the foot

Imagine the scene. It’s early 2012. The air in Wexford is full of promise. The hurlers and footballers have just secured an All-Ireland double for the first time in their history. Colm Tóibín has been awarded a Nobel Prize for Literature. Ann Doyle is President of Ireland and a general election is in the offing.

Down Main Street in Gorey we see the Fine Gael posse being led by Deputy D’Arcy – the fastest gunslinger in the East. He is surrounded by his sycophantic lap dogs eager to please and each, to a man, willing to take a voter’s ire for their leader.

Rather than walking on the footpath, the ever-grinning, cock-a-hoop group walk down the middle of the street – such is their air of confidence and belief that the election is theirs to lose.

The Deputy is surrounded by the party faithful and local councillors who are looking to looking to secure their own votes for the local authority elections.

Fine Gael has decided to run fifteen candidates for the Gorey Town Council election – even though there are only nine seats – such is there self-confidence that (as the song says) nothing can stop them now. Indeed Cllr. Colin has a ghetto blaster strapped to his shoulder blaring out the Jefferson Starship classic as they stroll down the street.

As the group, now all singing in unison, approach the first house on the campaign trail, The Deputy turns to one of his lackies and asks: “Whose house is this pad’ner?” “It belongs to Edna Kelly, my liege. A staunch Blueshirt, she’s been voting Fine Gael for the past 60 years.”

“Good, good” replies The Deputy with a grin on his face. “How old is she?” “70, my liege.”

Knock, knock. “Who is it?” comes the voice from inside the house on Esmonde Street. With all the bravado and hubris of a fire fighter coming to rescue a distressed damsel, The Deputy coolly says: “It’s Fine Gael.”

Inside the house several chains and bolts are unlocked in a hurried manner. The Deputy takea step back, stretches out his arms and closes his eyes to await the adulation and praise from a loyal servant looking to bask in his glory.

“What the feck would I be voting for ye for? Sure didn’t ye want Inda Kenny out and now you want me to vote for him again. Are you joking me?”

Hmmm. Something is not quite right here, the astute Deputy realisess. There must be some misunderstanding, I’m sure we’ll be able to sort it out.

A hushed silence has now descended over the posse and behind their glorious leader the 15 council candidates and party faithful are ever-so-slowly moving backwards.

“Ah come on now Edna, that’s all in the past. We have moved on and are a united party once again. All that happened way back in the dim distant past of 2010. Sure we all think Inda’s great now. We were wrong about him.”

Edna, whose blue-rinse hair is not in keeping with her Blueshirt bashing, slowly shakes her head. “You, Deputy, came out against Inda yourself and wanted him gone. He was not the man to lead the country you said and now you have the temerity to tell me he is. I’m afraid that just won’t wash.”

As the door slams in his face, the forlorn Deputy turns to his posse for some reassurance. Unfortunately they have moved across the street and donned the Red Rose of the Labour Party and are now bowing and kneeling before their new idol, Cllr. Robbie Ireton who is seeking election to the Dáil for the first time.

The Deputy saunters down Esmonde Street into the sunset and wonders just what has happened and how could things have gone so wrong?

2010
06/23
CATEGORY
The Gorey Details
Wexford
TAGS



8 comments

King Colin and his merry men

Inda Kenny could learn a thing or two about harmonious relationships at party political level from the Fine Gael representatives in Gorey.

While Inda is currently flapping around the Dáil bating off attacks on his leadership from left, right and centre; down here in little ole Gorey party relations couldn’t be cosier.

At last week’s Gorey Town Council meeting, of the nine councillors elected a year ago, almost to the day, five showed up for Cathaoirleach Colin Webb’s final meeting as he top man of the council.

Along with Labour’s Robbie Ireton, there was a full complement of Fine Gael councillors all showing up to fawn and praise at the feet of their King.

None of the four elected Fianna Fáil councillors (Lorcan Allen, Jimmy Fleming, Malcolm Byrne and Matt Travers) appeared for the meeting. All had varying reasons for not being present from being abroad to having work commitments.

For 12 months the council has struggled under the yoke of oppressive and bitter infighting which limited the functions of the council to see who could make better insults.

So it was something completely different in store for those of us who were present in the Council Chamber last Tuesday evening. With the sun shining outside and no opposition in sight we hoped that matters would be wound up in a more cordial and timely manner. We were wrong.

For what followed was in some ways more difficult to stomach than the bickering and infighting of the past ten meetings. With no opposition to staunch the sickening outpouring of love and unbridled adoration between the Fine Gaelers, the rest of us present were washed away with a wave of Blueshirt conceit.

Colin Webb, Michael D’Arcy Snr., Angie Dooley and Darren Keegan seized their chance to tell each other how brilliant they all thought they were. King Webb conducted the eulogising – praising each of his party colleagues in turn as they weakly batted off the tributes being thrown at them.

Cllr. D’Arcy’s Enterprise subcommittee was praised for coming up with ideas to reinvigorate business in the time – despite the idea being pooh-poohed by the Chamber of Commerce.

Cllr. Keegan was praised for his chairmanship of the Environment subcommittee and returning the purple and gold colours to prominence throughout the town.

Cllr. Dooley’s work as chairperson of the Education subcommittee was not to go without praise on the night of Big Love in Gorey and she received congratulations for her work with the local schools and raising the awareness of drugs.

Indeed it seemed as if the entire council chamber could have been on some illegal substances such was the felling of peace and love in the room.

Even the presence of a rogue Labour councillor at this Fine Gael love-in was not going to dampen the mood. Cllr. Ireton did challenge King Webb’s assertion that the new metal Hedgehog was fantastic, calling it instead a rust bucket but this was to be the end to Cllr. Ireton’s attempts to bring a downer on proceedings.

Whether it was his true admiration for the work of the Fine Gael party while in charge of the council for the past 12 months or the fact that he will be crowned the new King of Gorey next week, we will never know.

So as Inda struggles to keep the hounds from the door on Kildare Street, he can at least take some comfort that the Fine Gael councillors from Gorey are getting on famously.

Whether the next 12 months brings a similar trend of pitched battles between the two sides of the house or a yearlong love-in, one thing is for sure; Inda could learn a thing or two about party harmony from King Webb and his loyal band of merry men (and women).

2010
06/15
CATEGORY
The Gorey Details
Wexford
TAGS






Leave a comment

Need for joined-up thinking in education

The Leaving Cert begins this morning for 256 students in Gorey Community School but will their results really matter in the long run.

In recent weeks, months and years there have been rumblings about the way students are tested in this country with rote learning being derided as a thing of the past and calls for some sort of continuous assessment needing to take place.

Figures compiled by officials in the State Examinations Commission for the Department of Education have indicated there has been serious grade inflation in Leaving Cert results with the number of students achieving the higher grades (A1, A2 and B1) almost doubling since 1992.

Is it that the country has become that much smarter? Are we now a nation of super-geniuses who will conquer the world? Apparently not. According to industry experts and analysts the Irish student population is completely unequipped to handle the real world and as a result companies – in particular high tech companies – are looking outside of Ireland to fill vacancies.

Ireland prided itself on a highly educated workforce and the Government trotted out all these figures during the last decade about literacy rates and the increasing number of people finishing their Leaving Certificate.

Then there was the explosion of people attending the hallowed turf of third level education. Once free fees were introduced in the 1990s, the percentage of people continuing to third level increased exponentially. Everything was rosy according to those in charge. We had one of the highest number of university graduates in Europe and would attract some of the world’s leading companies to Ireland as a result.

And they came – though not to Gorey it should be said – from Google and Dell to eBay and Facebook, all these worldwide technology companies established bases here due to the perceived standard of education and the fact that Ireland was the “gateway to Europe.”

The island of Saints and Scholars was once again the leading destination for those looking for the best and brightest.

However in recent times the Googles and others have begun to bemoan the lack of qualified young people in this country. They cannot fill positions in certain areas because the universities and colleges in Ireland are not producing them.

So what happened? How have we fallen so quickly from our once lofty position as the brain box of Europe?

The answer lies in our education system which hasn’t really changed in decades. From the moment you enter the second level system you are focused on seven or eight days that will change your life.

I was told that I will never sit a harder or more important exam than the Leaving Cert. Everything we did was geared towards passing this exam. However if you asked me to relay some knowledge learned for that exam back to you a month or two after it, I would have struggled.

The lack of continuous assessment in the Leaving Cert curriculum means that all your eggs are in one basket.

The Leaving Cert Applied and even the Transition Year Programme have in more recent times attempted to give students a more practical approach to life after the Leaving, but it is far too little.

When these students enter third level they have to be reprogrammed to think and learn for themselves. There is very little in the way of joined-up thinking in the education system in this country and as a result we are producing young people who have over 15 years of education but very little idea of what it takes to get on in the real world.

What big companies want are young graduates with real world experience and who can contribute to their company from the off.

To get to this stage there needs to be a serious overhaul of the education system in Ireland if the 320 first year students coming into Gorey Community School in September are to have a chance.

2010
06/08
CATEGORY
The Gorey Details
Wexford
TAGS




Leave a comment

Green Shoots anyone?

Gorey seems to have gone to a mini-revival in recent weeks and there seems to be a genuine sense of optimism around the town, but is this change just a superficial one.

A feature in the Gorey Echo a couple of months ago regarding the dire situation on Main Street in the town. Businesses were closing down left right and centre. There were vacant premises all along the street and it cast the town in a poor light.

However in the past month there have been serious changes afoot with new businesses opening and old businesses reopening. Pulse accessories, Now and Zen and even a new fishmongers have all located on the main thoroughfare of the town.

Along with this The Fowler pub reopened two weeks ago and The Bank (although under a new as yet unknown name) will reopen following extensive renovations in the coming weeks.

Add to this Dominos Pizza opening near Gorey Shopping Centre, Via Veneto II and Cafe Veneto opening their doors on The Avenue and of course the new Movies@Gorey cinema opening on the Courtown Road this Friday and there seems to be a genuine sense of recovery in Gorey.

When the Gorey Echo ran the feature on the poor economic state of the Main Street, a member of the Gorey Chamber of Commerce said that things like that went in cycles and he seems to have been proved right with the recent upturn in fortunes.

Is this sustainable? It is surely not a coincidence that all these businesses have started up or reopened in the weeks leading up to the busiest time of the year in north Wexford. Within a month families and holidaymakers will swell the population by up to 50percent in the region and no doubt businesses will thrive.

However come September when all the blow-ins return to their homes and the days start to close in again, where will Gorey be left? Will businesses again begin to slowly close down and will jobs be lost?

It is inevitable that this will happen because the jobs currently being created in ‘new’ businesses will not be sustainable – perhaps with the exception of the jobs created in the much-anticipated cinema.

No new sustainable businesses have been created in Gorey in some time and with the IDA bailing out of the town without creating a single job in ten years. The sale of the IDA site on the Courtown Road is currently being finalised.

So where are the jobs going to come from? One woman this week announced a scheme to try and create jobs and business ideas from within. Roisín Markham from Ballygarrett is looking to set up a Gorey Jobs Club for professionals who are in transition or out-of-work.

She believes that by bringing together the skilled, experienced people from Gorey and networking some great ideas will come out from it.

This is the type of initiative that will create sustainable, homegrown jobs that will not disappear along with the hordes of people who leave the area once the schools return.

At last month’s Gorey Town Council meeting, the councillors said that instead of people commuting to Dublin every day, there should be indigenous business created here that will sustain the growing population of the area.

This is an admirable goal, but it requires specific action and cooperation between the Town Council, County Council, Gorey Chamber and the wider community to make it a reality.

So while Green Shoots are in evidence in the town, maybe we need to look a little closer at the types of Green Shoot being created and break the up and down cycle of the economic health of the town.

2010
06/02
CATEGORY
The Gorey Details
Wexford
TAGS


Leave a comment

Sense of community returning

The inquest into the death of Harry Hunter from Teresa’s Court, Knockgreany, Coolgreany took place on Monday.

Harry was last seen on December 29, 2009 but wasn’t found until January 8. His body had lain in the front garden of his house covered in snow for up to 11 days. At the time of the tragic incident, a couple of newspaper reports questioned how someone could have gone unnoticed in his front garden without any of his neighbours spotting him.

There was a sense that we as a community had become so uncaring and so selfish that we no longer cared for those living around us.

Harry Hunter was known to his neighbours in Teresa’s Court and the people of Coolgreany for up to 30 years and they cared for him. Many of them called in to see if he was ok in the intervening period but because of a heavy fall of snow and a large bush that was obstructing him from view, his body went undiscovered.

The tragic death of Harry Hunter could easily be given as an example of how our society has become uncaring and concerned only with ourselves and our immediate family. This however is not the case.

In communities like Coolgreany and all around Wexford and Ireland the sense of community is still as strong as ever. People look out for each other and care for one another. Around this time, the sense of community was never more in evidence.

As the snow fell and the roads iced over, people forgot about themselves in order to make sure the elderly and the infirmed were ok. People risked their own safety to bring food and fuel to those who could not leave their own homes.

Communities rallied together to clear laneways, grit roads and generally do what Wexford County Council could not do. While it should not take a crisis like that to bring a community together, it is in times like these that we see the true nature of people.

In the past decade there is no question that the erection of super-sized housing estates have lead to the isolation of people and the loss of community interaction, at heart we are still a society that cares about the welfare of others.

Unfortunately for many years we forgot about our civic duty and pursued material wealth at the cost of strong communities and society interaction. How many people lived in vast, bland housing estate and did not know one of their neighbours by name?

However with the economic crisis and the big freeze in January we seem to have all woken up to what is important in life. We seem to be returning to a more community-based society where people actually talk to their neighbours and have a vested interest in their communities.

Even more recently the eruption of the volcano in Iceland once again forced people to help one another out. Lifts from far-flung destinations were shared and a shared experience brought the best out of everyone it seemed.

It is sad that a lot of people have had to lose their jobs in order to realise this and hopefully if or when the economy returns to some semblance of normality, we will not forget the lessons we have learned.

2010
06/02
CATEGORY
The Gorey Details
Wexford
TAGS



Leave a comment

A TD’s work is never done

A TD’s work

is never done

What does a TD do? It seems like a simple enough question but when you think about it, the answer is not that straight forward.

At a meeting regarding the possibility of Educate Together getting the patronage of a new second level school in Gorey last week, no TDs were in attendance. Apologies from a few of the TDs from the South East region were read out initially by Karen Loughran who was chairing the meeting. There was vote in the Dáil apparently.

Following the opening speaker, Educate Together CEO Paul Rowe, Ms. Loughran returned to the podium to announce that a few more TDs had been in touch and would be unable to attend due to their commitment in the Dáil.

It must have been some sleeper members of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour who tipped off their master in Dublin that a phone call was required to say they wouldn’t be attending the meeting.

Now what I can’t understand is why they should have been there in the first place. The meeting was organised by the second-level working group from Gorey’s Educate Together to inform prospective parents about how they would run a second level school. It was never going to be a charged political debate with local representatives espousing the benefits or lack thereof of an Educate Together secondary school.

Yet this meeting will have been just one of thousands that TDs are invited to and expected to show a face at throughout the year in Wexford. Add to that funerals, christenings, birthdays, bar mitzvahs, shop openings, GAA matches and tiddly winks games and the amount of time a TD has to actually do anything constructive in the Dáil appears to be very small.

The problem comes back to the current political system which means that TDs have to make sure their constituents are happy because if not, come next Election Day they will not be re-elected.

This means that politicians in Ireland are looking at keeping their own corner of Ireland happy and not looking at the country as a whole. They feel under pressure to attend every meeting or event they are invited to for fear of upsetting locals and lessening their chances of re-election.

As part of the Aftershock series of programmes on RTÉ 1 last week, Dan O’Brien looked at the political system and how it needs to be reformed. He says that our current system lead to “ineffective and underperforming governments.”

The programme went on to say that our political system creates politicians who are “pathologically attached to their grassroots.” This can be seen at every funeral and field day across Wexford when politicians show up for no other reason than it is expected of them.

What good can a TD do at the funeral of someone they never knew? Would it not be better to allow them to free up this time to meet with companies looking to invest in Wexford or attend committee meetings in the Dáil?

It is therefore important that as voters we should not decide on who to elect dependant on the quota of funerals candidates attend in the run up to an election but consider the candidate who will represent Wexford and Ireland as a whole.

The whole political system needs serious reform and this will have to happen at national level rather than local level but if it does happen then maybe TDs will no longer have to look at the narrow view and will be able to see what is good for the country as a whole which invariably will be good for Wexford as well.

2010
05/18
CATEGORY
The Gorey Details
Uncategorized
Wexford
TAGS

Leave a comment

Legal Highs go underground

Legal Highs go

underground

Last week we reported in the paper that the head shop [The Stone Zone] based in Pugin Court on Michael’s Road in the town was to close.

While technically this was the case, the availability of the legal highs being sold in the store remains. A delivery service akin to a pizza or Chinese takeaway business is now in operation from the owner’s Wexford store.

All you need to do is text your order to the number posted on the closed front door of the shop and hey presto – you have your drugs delivered to your door.

While there was a broad welcoming of the closure of the store around Gorey last week, at a poorly attended meeting organised by the School Completion Programme in the Ashdown Park Hotel on Thursday night last, a HSE drugs officer warned about the lack of a public face on these head shops.

Susan Barnes, Drugs Education Officer, told the thirty or so parents who attended that the closure of the head shop may not be such good news. The sale of these legal highs has gone underground and only a mobile phone, which you cannot call, remains.

Ms. Barnes said by pushing these operators underground, the size and scale of the problem will not be known. It was easy for anyone to gauge the size of the problem previously by watching the shop for a while and noting how many people went in and out. This is no longer possible.

While the government is set on introducing legislation to curtail the operation of these shops, as Ms. Barnes pointed out, the people behind manufacturing these drugs have employed some of the world’s brightest minds.

From scientists to marketing gurus, the people who create the legal highs have consistently been one step ahead of the law makers in this and every other country. The government initially looked at banned certain products but this was attempted in the UK previously and the manufacturers had five replacement products ready to replace the banned one immediately.

All they need to do was change the active ingredient slightly and they circumvented the legislation.

The reason the head shop in Gorey closed its doors was because no insurance company in Ireland would cover Pugin Court while such a shop was operating from that location.

This may be an avenue other landlords could go down in their attempts to close the head shops but whatever they do it will not get away from the fact that there is a demand for these products.

The fact the owners have offered a delivery system to get their products to the people of Gorey is a clear indication of the amount of business they were doing while they were open. It is only a matter of time that another of these shops open in the town if there is such a demand.

Unfortunately the meeting last week was poorly attended as it is by informing and educating yourself about exactly what these drugs can do to you, can the problem begin to be solved.

Children are very susceptible as they see these shops openly selling the products legally and they believe they cannot do any harm.

Susan Barnes said the most important fact that parents needed to tell their children is that legal does not mean safe. This however is a hard message to get across.

The children no longer have any fear about these drugs as they were not illegal one parent told the meeting last week. This is a worrying fact and one that could see these products do some serious damage to the young people of Gorey before the government figure out a way of curtailing their sale.

2010
05/18
CATEGORY
The Gorey Details
Wexford
TAGS



Leave a comment

Board of Management were right not to give in

The Board of Management of Gorey Community School is seen in many quarters as the bad guy in the current impasse relating to enrolment in the school – however they seem to be looking out for the welfare of their students which is to be commended.

Anyone who has been in the school when the school bell goes for lunch break will know that 1600 students rushing about is a sight to behold – and to be scared of. To manage and control this number of hormonally imbalanced teenagers is a logistical nightmare I would imagine. To educate this number of students is almost an impossibility.

Yet Gorey Community School continues to surpass expectations and deliver top academic results despite the amount of students it caters for. The staff at the school have to be commended for this achievement as well as the principal Michael Finn, who throughout this debacle has firmly kept his eye on his student’s welfare and nothing else.

The Board of Management decision last Monday week to adhere to their enrolment policy and not permit any more than the sanctioned 270 pupils enter first year has angered and bewildered a lot of parents in north Wexford, but in reality their decision was an easy one.

No official communication had been made between the school or Board members and the Department. Yes John Browne and Seán Connick had received long letters from minister Coughlan thanking them for their interest in this matter and telling them devolved funding would be made available. They were quick to issue a press release basically stating: “Look at us. We’re brilliant. Look what we’ve done for Gorey.”

However a letter to a Wexford TD cannot be brought to the bank by the Board of Gorey Community School. Why did the Minister not contact Michael Finn or the chairperson of the Board, Sr. Kathleen? The only contact the school got was a call from a woman in the building section of the Department who gave some very vague details to the Principal.

This latest mess the Department has made is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to dealing with the educational needs of Gorey. That a town the size of Gorey has only one secondary school is ridiculous. Yes the town has experienced a population boom in the past decade, but it’s not as if this was not highlighted to the officials in the Department a long time ago.

A new school has been officially promised for Gorey since 2005. Yet today not a sod has been turned on the proposed site and last week it was revealed that the outline planning permission granted for the school will have to be reapplied for, pushing back any completion date.

The Department ‘promises’ to have a school delivered for Gorey by 2012 – it does not however state when in 2012 this will happen. Going on past performance is it any wonder that the Board of Management didn’t want to accept funding from the Department do to a lack of trust.

If we imagine for a minute the Board decided to take on the extra students and build the new classrooms. What then? More pupils crammed into an already overcrowded space? Would the Department feel as if the problem had been solved and put the completion of the new school on the long finger?

However much parents of the 39 children on the waiting list want them to go to Gorey Community School, surely they want them to go to a Gorey Community School which is not overcrowded and has a Board of Management which is looking out for the welfare of their children.

2010
05/18
CATEGORY
The Gorey Details
Wexford
TAGS




Leave a comment

Gorey’s Teen parents are the lucky ones

Last Thursday the Chief Executive of Barnados opened only the third of their Teen Parent Support Programmes (TPSP) in Gorey.

This raises a number of questions. Does Gorey have a particular need for such a service? Is there an epidemic of underage pregnancies in the north Wexford area? Most importantly however, why is this only the third of these programmes in the country?

Having a child when you are in your teenage years is probably one of the most frightening experiences your can go through. It is almost certainly unexpected and a lot of the time a result of a one-night stand where no contraception was used.

The fear of informing your parents, your peers and the nosy neighbours across the street could consume a person of considerable mental strength – not to mind a teenage girl.

While Gorey in the 21st century is a considerably more liberal and tolerant society than it was only 50 years ago, there is still a serious stigma attached to any teenage girl who gets pregnant.

While we no longer ‘get rid’ of the baby or send the girl to live with a relative in another part of the country for nine months, people will still have preconceived notions when they see a school girl in her uniform who is pregnant.

The programme launched last week, which has been operating in Gorey since July 2008 offers a welcome relief to these teenage parents. It is somewhere they can go without being judged and without fear of recrimination.

The staff there will help the young parents to find their way and inform them of what they need to do and how to do it.

Fortunately for the teenagers of north Wexford, they have a service like this, however if you were from Enniscorthy say and needed the help of TPSP you would be out of luck.

There are only three of these programmes, one in Dublin, a student parent programme in Waterford and the service in Gorey.

There is a serious demand for this service – Gorey TPSP has 45 clients at the moment – yet it has been left up to Barnados to provide it where they can. In other parts of the country there is a mish-mash of people trying providing a similar service. The HSE and Foroige are two of the groups who attempt to help teenage parents, but with nothing on the scale of the TPSP.

While the Irish education system still lags decades behind best practice in relation to sex education the problem is only likely to grow – here and across the country.

One mother speaking about her experiences at the launch told the assembled crowd of her dire situation when she found out she was pregnant. She was no longer on speaking terms with her parents and didn’t know what to do. She was lost.

Having been put in touch with TPSP, they helped her more out of her family home but also helped her to reconnect with her parents and helped her to look forward.

The goal of TPSP is to make teenage parent realise that having a child at that age does not necessarily mean the end of your life. While it may seem like an oxymoron, teen parents in Gorey are the lucky ones. They have access to this superb service while teen parents up and down the country have no such luck.

A lot of them are left to fend for themselves, alone and in fear. If the government are not going to update the sex education in our schools then they have a moral obligation to help those in trouble through teenage pregnancy and provide funding for Barnados to set up more of these centres around the country.

2010
05/18
CATEGORY
The Gorey Details
Wexford
TAGS



Leave a comment