THEREwasn't much cherishing going on in west Dublin last week, but there was plenty of fretting.

Over 200 sets of parents were left wondering whether their children would receive their inalienable right to education this year. At least that number of children are as of yet unsure whether there will be a place for them in a school system which is bursting at the seams.

The area around the Dublin 15 postcode has been fertile territory for developers in recent years. Castleknock and its surrounds has seen between 5,000 and 6,000 housing units built in the last five years. Littlepace, near the village of Clonee, is now home to an extra 8,000 families, while the area around Tyrellstown has mushroomed through the construction of 2,000 extra homes.

Yet there is no corresponding increase in school capacity. Since 2001, there has been a scramble for places every spring.

"It's groundhog day, " local Labour TD Joan Burton says.

"but this is the worst year so far. It's a problem of both planning and resources. The government is in denial about the resources that are required."

Two new primary schools built in the area in recent years illustrate the problems.

Both are housed in threestorey buildings because of premium attached to site values. The school in Littlepace caters for 760 pupils, while the other, in Castleknock, houses nearly 1,000 pupils.

Each is oversubscribed by around 100 places for next September. The spectre of tall buildings housing vast numbers of primary school pupils is more redolent of the industrial north of England in the 19th century than Celtic Tiger Ireland. But children must take their places in a hierarchy of interests, in which they are much further down the scale that the leaders of 1916 would have envisaged.

"Builders don't want to provide sites, " Burton says.

"The public interest is playing catch-up all the time. There was a time when builders provided the sites for schools, but now they don't want to because of the value of these sites.

"Patron bodies can no longer afford to build and whenever the department steps in they go ape at the prospect of paying these exorbitant prices for a site.

Parents are having to campaign just to get schools in their area. We are now looking at up to seven years before schools have permanent locations."

On one level, the problem can be filed away as one of prosperity, although who exactly is getting prosperous is another matter. But ultimately it is an issue of planning. When it comes to a choice between cherishing the prospects of children or taking a lead from builders, successive governments have chosen the latter.

Builders can't be blamed for self interest. As an industry, their constituent parts pump good money into the political system to ensure their needs and wants are taken care of. The state, through its elected government, is to blame for not properly promoting the interests of children, when those interests are in conflict with others.

The problems of Dublin 15 are just one example of where the equal cherishing of the nation's children is a betrayal of what was envisaged 90 years ago. Children are not accorded a special position in the hierarchy of interests.

The equal cherishing is not an aspiration that the state is trying hard to achieve. It is a choice made in the interests of pursuing and retaining power.

In 2003, one in seven children in the Irish state were living in consistent poverty, according to a report compiled by the Central Statistics Office. That represents 148,000 children in the second-richest country in the world. Would this have been acceptable to Bertie Ahern's hero, Patrick Pearse?

Last week, the children's charity, Barnardos, released a "school report" illustrating where some children are more likely to be ignored or abused than cherished in the course of their education.

In the academic years 2003/2004, the government allocated �?�6.3bn for education. This breaks down as �?�5,000 per pupil at primary level, �?�6,788 at secondary and �?�8,914 at third level.

"In a 2003 survey, " the report states, "89% of children whose father's social class was described as a professional worker were going to college in comparison to 28% of children whose father was unskilled."

The skewing of spending towards third level ensures that the beneficiaries of the state are usually the children of those who least need state assistance. Children born into homes at the lower rungs of the societal ladder are also more likely to display special needs, and require corresponding resources, during primary education. Yet the money is proportionately spent elsewhere.

Five years ago Noel Dempsey attempted to reintroduce college fees with a view to diverting money into educational disadvantage.

The move would have gone a very small way in attempting to cherish more equally, but it mobilised the political muscle of those whose kids are cherished to bits by the state. What we have, we hold, they said, and received a nodding acquiescence from the inheritors of the provisional government of 1916.

Class sizes are another barometer of equality in education. "Despite the current national average class size being 23.9, over a quarter of primary school pupils are being taught in classes with over 30 pupils and in some cases over 40 pupils, " the Barnardos school report states.

No prizes for guessing which parts of town host the bulging classes, and where the corresponding prospects for advancement lie.

Things have improved in the area of educational disadvantage. Dempsey got �?�46m for his solo run over fees. More money has been pumped in every subsequent year. The last budget provided for an extra 500 teachers to be phased in to lower the pupil-teacher ratio. But all these measures are relative, undertaken within a context where the pursuit of equality of opportunity and education among children is not a pressing concern.

Bad and all as the foregoing is, far worse is the attitude that informs the criminalising of some children on the rock of political expediency. The introduction of anti-social behaviour orders has attracted much criticism, none more so in how it relates to children.

The Human Rights Commission has warned that more children will be drawn into the criminal justice system as a result of the new regime. "International human rights law clearly sets out the longterm dangers of excessively criminalising children and the IHRC recommends that large parts of the present proposals should be reconsidered in this light, " the commission stated.

The ombudsman for children, Emily Logan, went on the airwaves to point out that Asbos run contrary to the Children's Act 2001 and may be counter productive. She was slapped down in a patronising manner by Mary Harney for her trouble, but the two women have different agendas.

"The Children's Act was a revolutionary piece of legislation, but nearly five years on it still hasn't been properly resourced.

That is the main problem, " according to Geoffrey Shannon, a lawyer who specialises in the law around children.

"There is provision for family welfare conferencing involving a child who has offended, his parents and the relevant agencies. It's not being soft on children but making parents part of the solution. That hasn't been implemented."

Another feature of the new legislation is the extension of the Garda Diversion Programme, which has been used as an alternative to court sanctions. Prior to this, the diversion programme was exclusively for children who committed criminal offences. Now it is proposed to include children who are Asbo-ed, a civil order subject to a lower threshold of proof. The effect will be to criminalise children who haven't committed a crime.

"More kids are going to be fast-tracked into the criminal justice system, " Shannon says. "From there it's a downward spiral for most of them to Mountjoy.

The purpose of the Children's Act was to remove children from the system. Asbos will drive things in the opposite direction."

The political point is that Asbos sound the business.

The regime gives the appearance that something is being done. In the absence of political will to properly resource the Children's Act, Asbos offer a policy that can be waved around at election time.

On such imperatives, the business of cherishing all the children equally founders.

Planning, education and the cynical use of crime for political purposes are just three of the ways in which one of the principal ideals of the proclamation is wantonly ignored.

Deepening inequality among the adult population is a feature of the neo-liberal economics that has served sections of Irish society well in the last decade.

Whether or not that is intended, it is inevitable.

Children require nurturing before achieving independence, yet in some cases they are subjected to even baser inequalities than their parents.

Pearse and his comrades must be turning in their graves.