Fiona O'Loughlin (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I wish to clarify that I am in Leinster House. I thank all the contributors for their comments on this difficult area. It is important to all of us. Everything that I have heard this morning has been thought-provoking and stark in respect of what we are dealing with. Last November, we had the opportunity to touch on this and looked at some of the statistics. I have several questions.

I am generally in agreement that the parent-student charter needs to be implemented. Building trust between the whole school community is important in terms of what we are talking about. Schools cannot say it is up to parents and parents cannot say it is up to teachers. Children have to accept that it is not okay for them to say they were afraid to tell. It is really up to everyone involved to try to tackle bullying. The idea and concept of having an independent therapist and counsellor available to every school is really important and should be done.

Ms Briody talked about a recent European study. That was helpful in terms of having research in the area. She also talked about the practice of a relationship monitoring model. Can she tell us a little more about that?