Dr. Niall Muldoon:

I thank the Chairman for the invitation and remind the committee that I made a formal submission on this topic in February this year, to which I refer members

By way of background, it may be of interest to the committee to know that since 2018 the Office of the Ombudsman for Children has received more than 400 complaints about bullying in schools, both at primary and post-primary level. These comprise 10% of all complaints that we have received in that time. In the context of our broad remit and the endless variety of complaints that we receive, that is quite significant.

The extent to which schools can be a site of bullying and the important role that schools can play, and must be supported to play, in combating bullying involving children are important considerations for today's meeting. This issue has received considerable attention from the UN Special Representative of the Secretary General on Violence Against Children, and contributed to the establishment in 2020 of the International Day against Violence and Bullying at School Including Cyberbullying, which the Chairman mentioned earlier. It is notable that the list of issues prior to reporting that the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, published in November 2020 in respect of Ireland, includes a request for information about measures being taken to tackle bullying with particular reference to cyberbullying and bullying in schools. Based on the complaints that we have received, some of the important issues to highlight are as follows: there is psychological and physical bullying between young people with a noted increase in instances, in complaints we have received, of serious bullying resulting in physical and-or sexual assault; there are challenges for schools in dealing with the more serious instances of bullying as many schools feel ill-equipped to do so; and there is a failure by some schools to report child protection and welfare issues arising from bullying instances to Tusla. In light of that, I believe that prevention and early intervention would be greatly aided by training, resourcing and support measures that can strengthen the capacity of education professionals working with children and young people in schools. It would also be helpful to co-ordinate and mainstream prevention and early intervention measures across the formal education system.

Back in 2016, our office, as part of its report to the UN committee on the rights of the child, encouraged the State to build on the monitoring framework contained in the Department of Education's document, entitled the Anti-Bullying Procedures for Primary and Post-Primary Schools, by examining schools' annual reviews of their implementation of the procedures. We hoped that the Department would go further than just checking if there was a policy in place and would start to collate specific information, and data, from around the country to determine the issues and solutions that occurred in schools. This is still not happening, unfortunately. In light of a number of consultations that we have had with children, over the past couple of years, who say that within their schools they have experienced issues such as racism, homophobia and negative commentary about their mental health, we believe that this data collection is long overdue. A review of the Department's anti-bullying procedures is also long overdue, which date from 2013, to take account of issues such as those that we have mentioned and cyberbullying. We ask for that because it may be time to start differentiating what constitutes bullying so that more refined solutions can be generated across the education system.

Before concluding, I want to speak about the mental health aspect and reiterate my call to have an independent therapist or counsellor available to every primary school in the country. This is not a unique concept. It has been shown internationally to offer enormous advantages to schools and their communities by affording children the opportunity to normalise speaking to someone about their emotions or if they are feeling down. I believe that it would complement the well-being policy and framework for practice currently employed across the education system. It would also afford additional comfort to teachers who know they have somewhere to send their pupils who may be impacted by bullying, bereavement, separation, divorce, addiction issues or domestic violence. Having an easily accessible therapeutic service would aid the whole school community to know that they are doing their best for every child. With regard to post-primary schools, I urge that all career guidance counsellors are formally trained to provide therapy for emotional issues as well as careers.

I must mention the Youth Mental Health Pathfinder Project. The project was designed to take a whole-of-government approach to tackling mental health issues for young people. It was backed by the Departments of Education, Health and Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. The project has not progressed, which is an issue that I have raised many times over the past five years. The implementation of Pathfinder would, undoubtedly, have a positive impact on tackling bullying in schools and dealing with other mental health issues that affect young people.

Finally, I am part of the Wellbeing for Teachers and Learners Group that seeks to embed a culture of well-being across the whole school community. The group has members from the Irish Primary Principals Network, the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals, the Teaching Council, and the National Parents Council Primary. We believe that we need to engage the whole school community, comprising parents, teachers, staff and children, to help reduce or prevent mental health issues within education. That must include supporting our teachers and other school staff to be emotionally aware and present for each other as well as students. If school staff are not safe and secure in their well-being, then children will be impacted. I thank the Chairman for his invitation and I am happy to take questions as required.