Robert Dowds (Dublin Mid West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Mr. Keegan's comments are very interesting. Education will only go so far. We see people smoking outside the door of this building, and they all know it is extremely dangerous. Encouraging people to have self-confidence is an interesting and useful comment. It points a finger towards how we should move and how our education system works. For all my adult life I have felt the most dysfunctional part of our education system is at secondary level. The introduction of transition year is part of recognising this, but I know the Minister is thinking about introducing a more diverse type of programme in place of the junior certificate and in this context it might be possible to address the issues Mr. Keegan raised. It might also be useful if parents encouraged somebody being subjected to bullying to stand back and walk away from it. If I looked at a series of Twitter comments about me it would be easy to get depressed. I deal with it by ignoring it.