Mary Moran (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I join in the welcome to the Minister who has been extremely proactive in the field of education and bullying, as has the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch. Both Houses have debated on numerous occasions the issue of bullying in all its forms. I wholeheartedly support the guidelines published recently which were long overdue; the last guidelines being published 20 years ago. Nobody wants to see bullying. As Senator Martin Conway said, there has always been bullying in some form. Having listened to Senator Sean D. Barrett, it is clear that times have changed. It used to be "sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me"; now it is a case of name calling never hurting them because it is all done through cyberbulling and devious means of making comments on social media, probably the biggest source of bullying today.

On bullying in schools, what we need is positive education for children. That is very important. We want every child to leave school feeling he or she has had a positive experience. While that happens in the majority of cases, unfortunately, there are many cases in which it does not. That is where the guidelines will help to tackle and overcome the problems being encountered. We have had many debates and talks and it is great that the guidelines have now been published. It is welcome that school principals must report incidents of bullying to the board of management which it can put up on the website. It is a positive development that the information is fed back to the Minister and that there is a continuous circle. No school likes to be subject to bad publicity and no school likes to state it has a problem with bullying.

I would like all aspects of bullying to be introduced in teacher training and also in training provided in schools. Given that school principals must report to the board of management, members of the board of management should also receive the necessary training. Why give the board this information if it does not know what to do with it?

I am delighted €40,000 has been made available to provide training and awareness for parents.

I do not mean to be a thorn in the side on this issue, but while we can all comment on the positive, there are issues that need to be teased out. The Minister has said there is €40,000 available for parents. That is brilliant, but will it be like the current situation with parent teacher meetings, where the same group of parents come in all the time, the parents we do not need to target. Perhaps these are the only parents who will avail of the training. The Minister said the leaflet on this will be distributed by the National Parents Council to all parents who attend its courses and that it will be published on its website. Would it not be a good idea to ensure that not only does it go to parents who attend courses, but to all parents of the schoolchildren. Perhaps some of these do not know how to access the Internet or cannot, for work or other reasons, attend the courses. The leaflets should be made available to them.

Much of the time bullying also affects parents. It affects a whole circle of people. We cannot just say the school or home should deal with bullying. It must be a communal effort. Sometimes, parents are the last to know about or admit bullying. Sometimes, the parents of the pupils who are being bullied are the last people the bullied pupils want to know about it because they feel they are letting their parents or somebody down. There is a problem in this regard. Therefore, it is imperative that children are encouraged to report bullying. I take on board what Senator Power said about cutbacks in schools and the reduction in the number of career guidance hours. These teachers provide a valuable service.