Giving up teaching post would hit school - Hanafin
Wednesday April 11 2007
She refused yesterday to say whether she will resign as a teacher if she is elected again in the upcoming general election.
Ms Hanafin is one of 20 TDs and senators holding on to their teaching jobs and preventing the posts from being permanently filled.
Green Party leader Trevor Sargent said he had resigned from his teaching post a decade ago and the Department of Education was wrong to still list him as a TD on leave.
"I have no longer any connection. I am not holding back anybody from being a teacher."
Mr Sargent added that if his party got into government, TDs would have to resign from their teaching posts after five years.
The Dublin North TD was first elected in 1992. He resigned his post at St George's National School, Balbriggan following the 1997 general election.
Refusal
However, Ms Hanafin refused to be drawn on what she plans to do with her teaching job, nearly 10 years after she left the classroom. "It was my intention when I was first re-elected to give it up," she said.
But due to falling pupil numbers at her former school, Sion Hill in Blackrock, Co Dublin, she found that this would result in the school losing the post.
As well, she said, her personal circumstances had changed in the meantime - a reference to the death of her husband, Eamon Leahy, four years ago. She said she would re-examine her situation after the election.
- Fionnan Sheahan
