Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the contributors for making their time available and bringing their expertise and experience to help guide us in our deliberations.

I always quote Ruairí Quinn: "Our job is to legislate." We have to take advice from the various interests, vested and otherwise, and then we have to do the right thing.

There are a couple of issues I would like to address with regard to the Education (Amendment) Bill, which I sponsored. The Teachers Union of Ireland states that 75% of the complaints received by the Ombudsman for Children were deemed outside of his remit. That has always been the issue. If the Ombudsman for Children is to be accepted as an advocate for education, somebody who is going to enhance and protect all partners, I can appreciate how it appears that an ombudsman for education would add another layer of bureaucracy and another layer of openness and transparency. If it did add another layer of openness and transparency, it should be very welcome. We are all aware of the horrific events in Tuam back in the day. Everybody wondered why nobody said anything. What I am trying to do here is bring accountability. No one should be afraid of accountability.

As a former principal, I am from a teaching background. I do not think that 95 % or 98 % of teachers have anything to fear from an ombudsman for education. It is not about making life difficult for them, it is about enhancing and recognising their role. It is about vindicating their rights in a lot of cases. Even when they are accused of things that they are not guilty of, it is important that there is somebody there to hear them.

I do not accept the claim somebody made today that the boards of management are accountable to patrons and the Minister. It is well known that if a parent writes to the Minister to make a complaint about the board of management, the first thing the Minister will say is that he has no role or function relating to a board of management. I therefore reject that claim.

To return to the advocacy role of an ombudsman for education, my issue with the Ombudsman for Children is that his remit is too narrow, as is evident from 75% of the complaints. Somebody said - it might have been the TUI representative but I apologise if I am wrong - it is only 300 complaints per year in the context of 4,000 schools and 917,000 students. However, the vast majority of parents would not dream of contacting the Ombudsman for Children with a complaint about their school or the board of management. They would not be aware of it as an avenue. Certainly in my role as a public representative I have advised several people but otherwise it would never dawn on them. They just get frustrated and go home. Some are very capable and use it but many are not aware of it.

An ombudsman for education would be somebody who is specifically qualified in the area of education and who would understand education and be devoted to it. The person would understand the Education Acts to the letter, the constitution of boards of management and the rights of teachers. Teachers are victims in our schools as well, in a minority of cases. I absolutely accept that trust in schools and in the school system is hugely intact. This is not a statement that people do not have trust in our school system. I am referring to the minority of cases, the few occurrences not of bad apples but just where things go wrong when somebody does not do their job and the accountability to the parent in that situation, as opposed to the board of management where the principal tells the board, "There is nothing here, so move on". The vast majority of principals are superb, overworked and overloaded. This is not an attack on them but a recognition of them.

However, there are teachers in our system who require the assistance and guidance of an ombudsman. Such an ombudsman could advocate for the rights of the teacher. A teacher cannot go to the Ombudsman for Children. They are over the age of 18 years and are not children. We have the Pensions Ombudsman and the Ombudsman for the Defence Forces. Why can we not have a dedicated ombudsman for the largest sector with the largest organisation and largest cohort of people to vindicate the rights of all the partners? The principals can be victims of their boards of management. This is about somebody who is exclusively committed and dedicated to education and knows it inside out. That is not the remit of the Ombudsman for Children. That is what I am trying to achieve for this huge sector. The ombudsman could be an advocate against the Government. For example, the ombudsman could lobby the Government on why the Education for Persons with Special Education Needs, EPSEN, Act has been in place for so many years and is not yet implemented. The role of an ombudsman for education would be to bang the drum, day in and day out, to ask the Government to do what it should be doing to vindicate the rights of children with special educational needs.

That is what I envisage with an ombudsman for education. I believe the witnesses have not looked at this from the right angle when they express a fear that this is something that would be unwelcome, cause more bureaucracy and accountability, require more answering and so forth. What if one asked the Ombudsman for Children for his view on the current situation with junior certificate reform? He does not have a view on that. He is not qualified in that area. However, an ombudsman for education would roll up his or her sleeves, get involved and make a statement on it. Such an ombudsman would take on board the views of all the partners and would be qualified to do so. That is what I am seeking.

There is a budget of approximately €9 billion for this sector. We could afford an ombudsman from that €9 billion budget. To put it in context, the Ombudsman for Children costs approximately €2 million per year. There are approximately 5,000 children in State care and about one quarter of that number require a voice in court. We spend €16 million on that, yet we spend only €2 million on giving every other child in the country a voice. This proposal is not something to be feared. It is not an attack on the education system or about hanging out to dry teachers or boards of management. It is about vindicating the rights of all the partners in education and having a suitably qualified professional person who will ensure the Government produces timely legislative responses to current issues. Those issues could be teachers' rights, teachers' qualification issues or issues where qualifications are not recognised.

An ombudsman for education is all-encompassing, so it is a narrow focus to suggest subsuming it into the Office of the Ombudsman for Children. That misses the point completely and does not do the teaching profession, which the organisations represent and for which I have enormous regard as I come from that background, any justice either. Teachers can be victims of fellow staff members, their principals or the boards of management. Where do they turn? I accept they turn to the organisations represented by the witnesses, but that is not their job. They should not have to be rolling up their sleeves in that regard. If there was an independent, suitably qualified, professional ombudsman for education to deal with these issues, it would be a win-win for everybody. I ask the witnesses to re-evaluate their approach to this on that basis.

I thank Ms Jane Hayes-Nally for her questions. I have addressed the issue of cost. The cost is minuscule in the greater scheme. If there is a budget of €9 billion, spending €1 million or €2 million of that sum on ensuring better outcomes for everybody involved is a pittance. We should not be hanging ourselves on the cost or saying that it will take from delivery of other services. One of the witnesses made a statement about all the other services that are under pressure. This would not take from those services in any way, shape or form. The Office of the Ombudsman for Children does not have the capacity to deal with the education sector. The health service has the Health Information and Quality Authority, HIQA, and other bodies. Education deserves this and it is time we all accepted that, as opposed to feeling fear about it and knocking it on the head.