A history lesson for the Taoiseach

■ In a recent exchange in the Dáil, the Taoiseach accused Sinn Féin of never doing anything for the children of the State.

Mr Varadkar may be unaware of the contribution Arthur Griffith (founder of Sinn Féin) and his finance minister Michael Collins proposed for the children of the new State.

As members of the first Dáil, which met in the Mansion House after the 1918 election, they drew up a constitution with the help of Seamus Hughes, the then assistant secretary of the ITGWU.

With the significant excision of two articles from the original, their document formed the constitution that existed until a new one was drawn up by De Valera’s government in 1937.

The articles abandoned in 1923 relate specifically to child nutrition and health as follows: “To encourage the proper physical development of the children of the nation by the provision of meals, the introduction of dental and medical examinations in schools and an organisation of national pastimes.”

The reason given for this withdrawal was that “the clause threatened to push the new party on to the treacherous and, by the standards of the day, radical ground of State-sponsored medicine and welfareism”.

The second clause vowed “to promote the extension of educational facilities by easy access from primary to higher schools, so that all the children of the nation have opportunity for the fullest training of their mental faculties”.

These clauses were dropped by the new Cumann na nGaedheal government following the deaths of Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins. Over a short period, the CnaG government made sure it was no longer ‘infected’ by old IRA members and it was soon called by Todd Andrews “a bunch of lawyers on the make”.

It should be noted that at the end of the Irish Parliamentary Party’s wipe-out in the 1918 election, Dublin had the worst slums in Europe. They remained so until the new government elected in 1932 started to build social houses. Hugh Duffy Cleggan, Co Galway