Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the doctors for coming in. It has provided great insight. I suppose, while we are not directly involved in how schools deal with this on a daily basis, upset parents come to our constituency offices. I recently had contact with a family of a child who has been through two secondary schools and is currently seeking home schooling. It has a profound, traumatic impact. It can be a traumatic few years that also has a considerable impact on the parents who are impossibly upset and grieving during severe bullying episodes. It can be absolutely appalling.

To speak frankly, I feel lucky in some respects. I turned 18 and did my leaving certificate examinations in 2007 so I was the last to get through the gap before social media and video phones became prevalent. While I had difficult episodes at various stages during my lifetime, at least there was respite when I went home. I have sympathy for children who go through episodes of bullying and do not have that respite because it can follow them home. I also have sympathy for parents who are facing these issues at the moment and who may not have, or feel that they have, the skills to deal with it.

I will ask my questions together. While they are not separate, there are two different elements to them, the second of which will be digital element. We need to have a sense of how well we are doing to deal with the problem. How successful has the 2013 strategy been? How do we feel those policies have worked? The FUSE programme has been tremendously successful but it has reached in the region of 400 schools while there are approximately 4,000 schools in the country. How much can that programme be expanded? How well are the teacher training colleges doing in ensuring that teachers are sufficiently well trained to deal with bullying incidents?

I am taken with the point that has been made about the bystander approach because the culture within a school is crucial. Sometimes when parents come to us, they suggest that teachers who might be sympathetic may not have the skills and training. They may have said to the parents that they have not been able to demonstrate that there has been bullying because there is no proof and so on. A whole-of-school approach is needed.

It is absolutely right that there be a definition of "bullying" but the problem with a definition is that sometimes people will fall short of it and may not feel that is a fair evaluation. I can imagine a difficult situation for a teacher or a school if a parent comes in and says that their Seanie got a puck on Tuesday and something was said to him on Friday, only to be told that is not bullying. The parent may feel profoundly that it is bullying. That would be a difficult place for a school, stating that an experience, while traumatic, falls short of bullying.

There have been proposals from the Law Reform Commission on digital safety. I introduced the Digital Safety Commissioner Bill 2017, proposing the establishment of a digital safety commissioner and other measures relating to online safety and takedown measures. I understand some proposals from Europe on takedown measures are at the early stages of development. I do not know whether an update can be given on that and whether we are hopeful that European legislation can tackle social media. We can do a lot here but we cannot do it all because they are global entities.

There is a lot in what I have asked for our guests to answer in two minutes. I ask them to do the best they can and to write to me if they do not get to it all.