Niamh Breathnach changed lives for the better, and her impact will last for generations
Niamh Bhreathnach was one of the most fearless, principled and determined leaders that Irish politics has produced. Picture:RollingNews.ie
Since Niamh Bhreathnach’s death, I’ve been surprised by the number of people I’ve met who remember her for something I had almost forgotten. One of my neighbours, for instance, now runs his own business. He plans to go to her funeral, although he has never met her. The reason?
“If it wasn’t for the Applied Leaving Cert,” he told me, “I’d have left school early and with nothing. She did that.”
It was by no means the only thing she did. And like many of her achievements, she had to fight the system to get there.
She was totally driven by Labour values and by feminist values, and she had unmatched integrity.
I can still hear Niamh’s voice, crystal clear in the middle of a tense room. It was 1996, and the relationship between Dick Spring and Albert Reynolds had broken down after a series of controversies. The Labour ministers had just walked out of Cabinet after the appointment of Harry Whelehan as president of the High Court had been pushed through.
The group were considering their next steps. There was uncertainty and no small amount of anxiety. Spring made it clear to them that this was his row, and while he was unwilling to work with Reynolds again, he didn’t want to impose that on his colleagues.
Before he could even finish the thought, Niamh spoke. As clear as a bell.
“Forget it Dick,” she said. “We didn’t walk out after you. We walked out with you.”
End of discussion.
Niamh had one term as minister for education, and she came to that job with no previous ministerial experience. She was the first-ever member of her party to become minister for education, and the day she was appointed Dick Spring told her we had fought to get that department because it was a place where lasting changes can be made.
And make them she did. She will be remembered as one of the most consequential education ministers we’ve ever had.
When she came into office, there was no psychological support for primary school children. By the time she left, the service was up and running. Throughout her period in office, she made one of the biggest investments in remedial education ever seen.
She fought really hard to start a programme called Breaking the Cycle, aimed at providing targeted resources for children whose development was being damaged by economic and social disadvantage. She was fought tooth and nail by her own department, who were horrified at the idea of extra investment going into some children.
It was even laughably suggested to her that some of the children involved might get an unfair advantage over others. Her reply was always the same.
“Unfair advantage?” she would say. “All I want is to give these kids a chance to catch up.”
Her persistence finally got them to agree to a pilot programme with a five-year timeframe, applicable to less than 200 schools. That pilot programme is still going strong a quarter of a century later. It has expanded all over the country, and it has changed tens of thousands of lives.
She was convinced that there were thousands of young people who wanted to use a system geared to their talents and abilities to progress in life, but were daunted by the often over-academic nature of the 'ordinary' Leaving Cert. The Applied Leaving Cert has also changed thousands of lives for the better.
And she was determined to try to arrive at a point where education at every level would be seen as a right and not a privilege, where the education system would be cast as a way of enabling and empowering young people to grow and develop for themselves and not just because economics demanded a skilled pool of labour.
Her White Paper on Education was ground-breaking because it was informed by her emphasis on what young people wanted for their lives, and not just on what employers might want.
Her decision to abolish third-level fees was aimed at removing one of the last barriers of privilege in Ireland. Again, she was strongly opposed within the system, horrified at the potential cost. She won them around in the end by calculating the amount of money the State was giving away each year to better-off families who were getting a huge tax break on savings put aside to pay for their children’s college fees.
I went to her once with a mad crazy idea my wife Frieda had — the idea that people with an intellectual disability might also aspire to third-level education. She had actually persuaded Trinity College to give the idea a go, but there was no money.
Niamh allocated a small capital sum to the college to purchase a building — the only condition being that it had to host an education and research institute for people with a disability.
That institute — the first of its kind — is still thriving, and its ideas are enabling third-level colleges all over the country to offer real opportunities to a group of citizens never deemed worthy before.
There are people whose work puts in them in the way of saving lives. And there are others who transform lives. Great teachers do it, and so do great ministers for education. And Niamh was one of the best. She lost her seat in the Labour wipe-out in the 1997 election, but she left her imprint behind.
She was a fighter for change in all sorts of ways. Children’s rights in Ireland owe a lot to her. Women’s rights in Ireland owe a lot to her. Nobody worked harder than she did — in the '80s and again in the '90s — for the rights of people trapped in broken marriages. And when she lost a battle, her instinct was always the same. Never abandon the cause. Start fighting again in the morning.
Away from all that, Niamh was a great host, a great friend (she has lifelong friend all around her where she lived in Blackrock), and a great character to meet. Warm and chatty, there was nothing she liked more than a bit of gossip.
I haven’t met Tom, Niamh’s husband, nor her children Cliodhna and Macdara, for a while now. I know they will be devastated by Niamh’s death. But in time to come, they’ll be comforted, I hope, in the knowledge that Niamh Bhreathnach, in one solitary term in government, with no government experience but with staunch values to guide her, changed thousands of lives for the better for ever.
She made a hell of a difference, and her impact will last for generations.
