Dr. Niall Muldoon:

The Deputy referred to the 400 complaints. As he rightly alluded, we are the last port of call. Before coming to us with a complaint, a person has already gone through the teacher, the principal and the board of management. People take their complaints seriously if they are coming to us. Obviously, not all of the 400 complaints are of the same level of seriousness, but we are finding more complicated and difficult issues arising under the title of "bullying". We need to examine them from a systemic point of view, including the Department of Education's responses as well as the supports it gives schools. As we discussed the previous time I was before the committee, there is a sense of the Department being hands off and that the response should be from the individual school. That makes achieving consistency, including in communication styles, across the 4,000 schools difficult. When does a school engage with child protection services or the Garda when the bullying becomes more serious and complicated? That last point concerns me. We are hearing about incidents that might have been called "touching" years ago but are now known to be sexual assaults. We are recognising different issues and naming them appropriately, but they can be hidden under the term "bullying". People have got away with things because of that. We need to start considering this in the longer term. We had not examined our figures before this committee meeting was arranged. What we found was surprising, so we were delighted to do that. We need to support the boards of management and teachers in finding a proper system so that they have a way of naming what is happening and gathering those data into the future.