Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Eleven Senators have contributed constructively and positively to the debate. In citing some of the matters that stuck out for me, that is not to ignore other matters that were mentioned.

I welcome Senator Power's generous response on cross-party support and the fact that we need to listen to each other, a phrase that Senator Cullinane spoke about. There are continuous examples of good practice and the Senator referred to some of them.

Senator Conway talked about the fact that, sadly, no community is immune from juvenile self-harm or youths taking their own lives. We must be alert to a phenomenon that simply did not exist a long time ago or, if it did, it was not mentioned. It certainly exists now.

Senator Barrett made some interesting and constructive suggestions. He referred to pioneers such as Senator Owen Sheehy-Skeffington and Dr. Cyril Daly who articulated what was unacceptable to say at the time. Indeed, people thought that they were mad and that every parent had the right to beat their child. We have moved on from that. I pay tribute to the late Minister John Boland - he served his apprenticeship as a Senator in this House - for making corporal punishment illegal in our schools. The fact that it is not illegal in our homes has been raised. There is a definition about it and we have been cited on human rights grounds to the Council of Europe and we are dealing with the matter. Senator Burke also suggested that a new black card could be used for unacceptable behaviour. The difficulty is whether that means expulsion, which is why I intervened, or whether by using such a system we would be running away from the problem rather than solving it.

Senator Mary Moran had interesting things to say, particularly on teacher training and the whole area of CPD. I am aware of problems in the staffroom and bullying among colleagues. That is an issue that the teaching unions must face up to, because in a way they are not doing that. It is the elephant in the room, and it includes teachers bullying pupils and other teachers. We must consider the whole question of how the SPHE curriculum helps to tackle bullying. That takes us back to the reforms of junior certificate. Due to the tyranny of that system, if a subject has no examination it is said not to count when in fact SPHE is clearly a critical subject.

That leads me on to what Senator Zappone had to say. Understandably, she focused on the question of homophobic bullying. The 1993 guidelines made no reference to homophobia - it was a word that could not be spoken about. It will come as no surprise to Members that, in the wider education community, some representative groups did not want to address the issue and took the view that because it was not a problem in their school, it did not exist. However, we all know that homophobia exists. Senator Zappone made an interesting point about progress on the legislation initiated by Senator Power on protection for teachers in the classroom. I will either come back to Senator Zappone on that or I will ask her to follow up that matter with Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Shatter. The A list includes legislation to merge the Human Rights Commission and the Equality Authority and our reforms in that area are destined to go through. However, if we do not make the progress that I and this House want to see, it is open to this House to take whatever action it wants to. I hope that some of the bureaucrats that sit behind some of the committees respond to that threat. I hope it does not come to that.

This House is sovereign in its own right and can decide what it wants to initiate. What happens in the future is another matter. We need to have teachers, as they are key role models in the classroom. If somebody who is openly gay or lesbian is part of the normal community, that gives great support and sustenance to young people who are struggling with their own identity. We know this struggle starts at a younger age now.

Senator Clune raised the necessity to promote best practice and a sense of awareness. Senator Mary Ann O'Brien raised the issue of cyberbullying and the cancer of sites such as Snapchat and others. The older generations have always struggled to keep up with younger generations. Some may be old enough to remember a famous book in the 1970s called Future Shockby Alvin Toffler, in which a person of considerable age on the west coast of America says to a cohort of young people that the problem with the future is that you will have to cope with change, to which the response is, that is your problem, we are doing it. It is so true. Senator Hayden referred to peer-to-peer mentoring and support. I see that as being of critical importance.

To echo what Senator Barrett said, we have to strengthen the student unions in secondary schools. The Dáil na nÓg and the student councils in many cases are a fiction. It is brushed off and opened out to the inspectorate when they arrive. It does not have teeth. We must try to reinforce student unions at second level. The student unions at second level are very strong in very many EU member states. Because of the inevitable turnover of students, they need more support and be given greater recognition.

It may have been either Senator Zappone or Senator Moran who commented that the implementation of practices must be part of the whole-school evaluation. Maintaining the logbook is critical. If an incident is reported, it should be noted. There should be a logbook, as there would be on a ship of incidents, so that if issues arise and must be dealt with, one should be able to look it up in the logbook to see the incidence of such events in the past number of years. Some people may say that is not a problem in their establishment, but the reality is that if one must report the incident, there is a record which must be communicated to the board of management. I very much welcome the reference to a school app, which seemed like a wonderfully simple and easy thing to get and both Senator Conway and I commented on it. Perhaps Senator Power might get her colleague to send it to us.

Resources are necessary for most things but the first step to unlocking resource is the willingness to recognise that there is a problem. Money can be found to deal with most problems. We have just allocated €40,000 for 70 training programmes for parents. We will see how that works. Usually, it has been everybody's experience, whether constituents or members of our own party or the wider public, the people who complain the most are never there when one wants to talk to them or they do not show up and they will give one grief when one tries to respond. We can respond to the issues that have been raised. We are in a relatively better place now than we were. First, there is broad social consensus across this House and I think in society generally. I strongly welcome the cross-party support and the constructive engagement and criticism that it entails. I will respond to it.

The next stage is to implement this strategy and to monitor it. There are steps which the Members of this House as public representatives can take. Many Members are invited at regional or national level to parents' councils, management groups to teachers' councils. It is not just during the formal visit of the Minister in which people listen and talk about issues, everybody's engagement is critical and is part and parcel of raising the level of comprehension and support.

Many people felt in the past that one could not do very much about this problem. We can do a lot if we want to and the most important step has been taken. I want to confirm that it has been reaffirmed in this House that the most important step we can take is to acknowledge that we do have a problem, and that we must confront it, because sadly the poignant tragedy in County Donegal, in which two sisters died, is just one of the tragedies that brings home to us the extreme consequence of the failure to recognise the problem.