Dr. Colman Noctor:

Without speaking to the FUSE programme specifically, there are two issues. We have to make schools accountable. As Dr. Muldoon said, there has to be accountability for how we respond to bullying. It is not good enough just to dismiss it or not to be good at it. Nevertheless, we can overburden schools by asking them to get into mediation and so on. If we are going to have accountability, resources have to be in place that will support the school to do it. It is a two-pronged approached. While we can inform teachers on how to better manage the issue, there has to be somebody to whom they can hand it over. Teachers are educators primarily and there are experts in this field, many of whom are attending this meeting, who would be able to help with that. We cannot just say "we tried that, we spoke to the class and I have done my bit" and tick it off; there has to be accountability of result and outcome, rather than just a tokenistic effort.