Collision course

THE prospect of closing schools seems a nice wee idea for saving money, although no-one has yet explained how this will be achieved as there is unlikely to be a queue to buy old school buildings, but at least they’ll save on the costs of those pesky teacher’s wages.

So, while we’re all welting away thinking about what the Education Minister, John ‘High Tower’ O’Dowd’s audit of schools will result in, some schools in the South Eastern Education and Library Board area are already ‘earmarked’ for closure.

One such school is Knockmore Primary School in Lisburn, an integrated school with a special needs unit. Who should pop up there on Friday, but Health Minister Edwin Poots. And the Department of Health’s press release duly issued a press release with much made of the speech and language work done there.

But surely it could be construed as inappropriate for an Executive Minister to visit a school while its future is being decided. If he was visiting as the constituency MLA then fair enough, but then the gathered press officers would not have needed to pull together a few well honed phrases and issue the release via the Executive Information Service.

Has a nod been tipped to ‘Big John’ or will this see mutual huffing?