After taking a break from the canvass trail on Saturday to attend a First Communion, Social Welfare Minister Mary Hanafin returned to work yesterday with plenty of horrid tales. So shocked was the minister that she told the Family Support Agency and Barnardos something needs to be done in advance of next year's "family events".
Yesterday, news reached her of a church in her constituency of Dun Laoghaire where one child making her communion arrived in a horse and carriage.
"The child was in high heels," Ms Hanafin said.
"The poor child was all you could say. That's not the child's fault but the parents, in advance of an occasion like that, they need a little bit more support about what's in the best interests of the child."
At the First Communion she attended on Saturday, one of the pupils was "like a little bride" and smothered in a dress, she said.
"The sisters were in psychedelic . . . all I could call them were little bra tops in the church and were in and out and in and out -- 10 or 11 years of age," she said.
"You can't blame the child for that but you'd love to be in a position to support the parents to know that it's not in their interests. It's not in anyone's interests."
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