Dr. Niall Muldoon:

I would acknowledge that a lot of work has happened in the last three years, which was sparked by Deputy Daly. What is on offer regarding the parent and student charter is a phenomenal change of culture in the way forward for education. We are putting children into the system for the first time. It always irks me when I hear negotiations with the education partners that do not involve children. Therefore we are putting a students' charter in place as well as for parents. In turn, that means we are creating a new system of engagement with the authorities. It will mean that parents should have a much more open and transparent engagement with schools. In that way, principals will know that parents have an opportunity to engage with them on a more regular basis.

The charter will allow parents and children to highlight what they want from their school, and it will be the terms of reference for the school to work to. It will also have a set of principles which are clear and concise, and which will refer to matters such as children's rights. It will allow the child to be heard, which is an article of the UNCRC, as well as allowing the child's views to be listened to and followed up on. In addition, it will allow the child not to be discriminated against. This will not only concern students' councils, but will need to engage with all children across the board. It will also have to encompass children with special needs, and education and welfare difficulties. It is creating a whole new culture.

While there will be changes, the most important one is the ability to get a directive from the Minister. That is what changes the concerns we had. Deputy Daly cited the example of a pregnant teenager who is not allowed to go to school. Even when the child was born, the mother was still not allowed to attend that school. That could have been avoided if my office had the power to seek a ministerial directive. It would probably have changed the way in which the principal dealt with us also because he would have known we had that option. That is the greatest achievement coming from today's work and it is something to be proud of. All the negotiations that have occurred so far change the way boards and principals have to look at things.

It is not something that will happen every day. We are talking about a small number. The psychological pressure on parents was mentioned, because essentially one comes to a dead end if boards do not listen to parents. If they come to us and we cannot engage any further with them, that is a dead end. That is what has been happening. My ability to bring the Department of Education and Skills into it in a more realistic manner has changed as a result of this measure.

I want to counter what Deputy Jim Daly said. It is unfair to characterise our office as not dealing with the educational welfare of children. It is an unfair characterisation of our office to say that we only deal with bullying, child protection and beaten children. There are clear examples to the contrary. We have already highlighted the idea of educational welfare for children with special accommodation for the leaving and junior certificates. We worked hard on that issue and created a report for the State Examinations Commission.

We have also commissioned research on children in care in education and the welfare system they require. We have examined designations that will be coming through the Education (Admissions) Bill soon. That provides a designation for children who did not get access to school, as well as for special needs children. We had a long engagement with the Department over those investigations out of which the designations have come.

We have also been involved in investigations concerning preschool children with special needs who could not get special needs assistants and were not able to access the free school year. That has led to the new aims scheme that is now coming on board. We therefore have a huge engagement with education and welfare, and our office does that all the time. Some 45% of our work concerns the education remit.

It was clearly stated that the idea of an education ombudsman is to be solely dedicated to educational welfare. By its nature, however, one cannot engage with other aspects concerning children. We do not need to silo children any further, we need to engage across the remit and we do that continually. Every day of the week we deal with children who have problems getting school transport, as well as those with special needs, including occupational or speech and language therapy.

When we have child protection issues, that concerns Tusla, we engage across all Departments. That allows us to see the whole child and not just the educational aspects. To cement us into one more little silo is to the detriment of schools, parents and children. That is the crucial part for us.

It is important for the message to go out that the overall culture is changing and will allow us to examine the role of school boards and principals in order to do something about that. We can certainly make improvements through the parent and student charter.

As the Chairman said, this is a historical step forward from 1998 when section 28 was never even touched. We have constantly asked for the tripod of complaints mechanism - the Teaching Council, section 28 and ourselves - to be in place. We were working on our own for the past 20 years, but now have the Teaching Council and a brand new section 28 through the parent and student charter. That will make a huge difference to those difficult cases that we all want to see being improved.

We want to take away the pain and psychological trauma, both for parents and children, when a board is stubborn, recalcitrant and does not go any further. This represents a huge step forward.