We're not Teachta Dodgers.

(From Irish Independent)

from Review front

should be back three or four weeks and then gone again for another week."

She spends Mondays working in her office in Birr, meeting constituents, the meat and potatoes of every TD's life. She does 13 clinics a month around the constituency, usually on evenings or weekends. People generally come with problems about housing or socialwelfare.

With her being party's education spokesperson, she also gets parents whose childrenmay be having problems accessing special needs facilities at school. On a typical Monday, she will meet eight or 10 people, generally by appointment.

Deputy Enright admits that she deals with many of the queries received by putting a PQ (Parliamentary Question) to the relevant government minister. These usually relate to entitlements which for some reason a constituent is unable to access. He or she may have run into a problem with the bureaucracy.

But other avenues are explored at the beginning. If, for instance, the problem relates tosocial welfare, the first thing Ms. Enright does is to contact the social welfare officer.Often the decision taken by the social welfare officer will have been the correct one. Butthere may be grounds for pursuing the matter further. It's not a question of trying to getsomething which the constituent is not entitled to. Sometimes the person simply may not have given the right information.