Ms June Tinsley:

It would be a combination of legislation and a cultural shift. Even parent representatives on boards of management can feel quite inadequate or not represented strongly enough. It takes a school community to push this. It could be as simple as choosing that there would be one item of clothing that would have the school crest which would ensure that they would still have the school identity and the school ethos would be represented, but that it does not need to go on a blazer, gaberdine or tracksuit top. It would be a conscious decision to scrap all of the other items of school uniform that require that crest on it. It should be floated as an idea.

On the other issues, digital books or e-books certainly came up in the Barnardos survey last year. Increasing numbers of schools, on their own initiative, are pursuing this. It requires the Department of Education and Skills to take leadership on this because there is an absence of a policy approach to it.

Lastly, in connection with the voluntary contribution, parents relayed to us tactics that schools are using to put pressure on them to pay the voluntary contribution, effectively, stigmatising their child because they had not or cannot pay it. That is a totally unacceptable tactic. Children go to school to be educated, not to be victimised because their parents cannot pay the voluntary contribution.