Article Tools

Ireland is surely in a bad way.

It’s common knowledge that Ireland has suffered a severe downturn in its financial fortunes over the past few years and everyone is said to be feeling the pinch. After a few years of great expansion and well-being, especially in the building trade,  the countryside is littered with half-finished houses whose builders have gone to the wall, and the investors have already all jumped ship. The government is under pressure and is unlikely to survive the looming general election.

In times like these everyone has to make their little sacrifices. Some have had to forgo their annual holiday abroad, some have even had to abandon thoughts of a holiday at home, and the lack of funds has hit education as well as all other areas of public life. Teaching posts are hard come by and the upgrading of school buildings is not likely to be happening any time soon.

The ultimate indignity however has just been inflicted on one particular school, St John’s Girls National School in Carrigalin, County Cork. The Principal has sent a letter to the parents of all the little girls asking that they should bring to school their own toilet paper. This is no urban myth, it’s fact, and parents are mightily displeasured

On the other hand we all remember how inadequate school toilet paper always seems to be – very thin and slippery as I recall, not like greaseproof paper or tracing paper, so maybe it’s not such a bad idea.