A Cabinet meeting where?!

A Cabinet meeting in a rat-infested classroom to highlight the problems in education? Or how about the weekly top brass gathering on hospital trolleys to bring attention to the ailing health service?

Maybe our Ministers could hold their weekly meeting of minds on the queue for food parcels outside the Capuchin Friary on Dublin’s Church Street to let people know about the new poor of Ireland?

Sounds a bit far-fetched, doesn’t it? Well when it comes to other Governments around the globe, they have no problem changing the location of their cabinet meetings to highlight problems.

Take the Nepalese Government, for example. They will be holding a cabinet meeting on Mount Everest later this month to highlight climate change in the world.

The entire cabinet of the 22-party coalition will move to the Everest base camp at an altitude of 17,585 feet for the landmark meeting.

The decision by the Nepalese cabinet to decamp from their cosy offices to Everest base camp comes just weeks after the government of the Maldives held an underwater cabinet meeting - YES, you read that right - to focus global attention on rising sea levels ahead of a key UN summit in December.

So if our Government want to highlight the conditions of schools in Ireland, I’m sure the INTO would be able to come up with a few choice locations for them where they could meet the local rats and mice that inhabit the school buildings on a frequent basis?

Or there are bound to be plenty of people who have been forced to endure long waits on hospital trolleys waiting for admission who would be honoured to point the way for the politicians.

But it seems that when our cabinet moves from the cosy confines of government buildings, they have more luxurious venues in mind - think back to the stately Emo Court outside Portlaoise in 2003 or Avondale House in Co Wicklow in 2006.

But we can all live in hope!