Katherine Zappone (Independent) | Oireachtas source

What a great teacher Senator Moran must have been and how blessed her students must have been. Well done to her.

Like other speakers, I am happy to welcome the Minister and compliment him on the work of the anti-bullying working group. As the Minister went through the steps, I remembered each of them. Many of the Minister's colleagues participated in this with him and I believe what he has achieved will be an integral aspect of his legacy. I believe all the Minister is doing will make a difference and will help to change the culture. From the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, LGBT, perspective, I welcome the measures. As the Minister is well aware, both homophobic and transphobic bullying are endemic in our schools. The proposed procedures and action plan on bullying are some of the most significant moves in the history of the Department of Education and Skills in regard to addressing this problem.

Earlier this summer, I put forward a Bill on gender recognition and I am heartened to see specific reference to transgender young people and transphobic bullying in the new procedures. I learned a lot and gained experience on this in putting together my Bill. I learned what it means to be transgender and to struggle with that and about how unusual and different that is. I learned how much learning we and teachers need to do on this issue. Who better to teach us than young transgender people? I certainly learned a lot from them. It is also important to know that young people who are not transgender are often bullied and targeted as if they are. This happens when young people are experimenting and stepping outside of rigid gender roles.

There is a lot of learning in that arena as regards bullying. The Minister referred to oversight and Senator Mary Moran also referred to it in terms of ensuring the implementation of the guidelines. We all hope and believe that schools will take the opportunity presented by the guidelines so that the context is happier for their young people. In my community, I heard stories of young boys being bullied. It is so sad to hear it and it is very hard for young people. I hope this opportunity is grabbed by schools. In the action plan, existing models for evaluating schools will be used to measure the effectiveness of anti-bullying activity. The Minister referred to the principal and the board of management. Is there potential in considering evaluating it in the context of school inspection reports? The inspector has strength and power in the school context and this may be another way of doing it.

From the action plan, I see that teacher education support services give priority to the gathering of evidence in respect of teachers' needs with regard to bullying and teachers' capacity to address it. I welcome this and I hope, like others, that sufficient resources will be made available for teachers to be trained specifically and equipped for bullying behaviour.

Senator Moran spoke about social, personal and health education, SPHE, and I also raised issues about the teaching of it in the past. I will highlight the integration of the SPHE support service into the professional development service for teachers. People who were once focused on SPHE are now fulfilling a number of other roles. How will this have an impact on SPHE, which is already a non-exam subject and not mandatory? Will the integration have an impact on the training of teachers who can teach SPHE? I am thinking specifically of the roll-out of an SPHE model on LGBT identities. It has been slow and I understand that it must be slow because teachers must be trained to teach it. The teaching of such a module could be one of many steps taken by schools to address bullying but, due to resource concerns, there is a challenge.

I praise the work that has taken place but I cannot finish without mentioning another group in our school system that experiences fear and worry on a daily basis because of their identity, namely, teachers. Earlier this year, my colleague, Senator Bacik, published the Equality Employment (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill which proposed to deal with the so-called chill factor for employees in religious-run institutions who, by virtue of their identity or family circumstances, may be said to undermine the employers' religious ethos. I welcome the efforts and I also noted the efforts of Senator Averil Power in this regard. Senator Bacik and Senator Power were told the Government accepted the issue, as the Minister said, but that it would be examined by the Irish human rights and equality commission when it is set up. Legislation to set up the new commission is in section A of the Government legislative programme and perhaps the Minister can inquire of his Cabinet colleagues when the new body will be set up and when we will see the legislation.