Pauline O'Reilly (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank our guests. It is great to have all their wisdom. I did an online safety course with my children. It was amazing.

There were many ways in which I knew things they did not know and they knew things I did not know. As Mr. Arneill has said, sometimes we are inclined to steer clear of things because we do not feel we have the knowledge when actually there is some wisdom that comes from age. Then there is some new wisdom that comes from young people, which we still have not caught up with either. It is very well worth doing.

I brought up the issue of empathy last week. I am a big fan of the empathy programme. It is, in some ways, replicating what happens in society generally around empathy. What are the witnesses' thoughts on whether school life is adequately reflecting real life outside of school? If it is not, then we are missing a trick when it comes to empathy. Perhaps there are other structural things happening in schools that stop empathy from happening. In some other countries, for example, multi-age education is used because it is clear older children are more empathetic when they are around younger children and younger children learn from older children. Are there some structural aspects of our educational system that the witnesses believe could actually change the way people feel about each other and so we could have more empathy? Mr. O'Connor made an excellent point about the othering of some people in society. What are the representatives' thoughts on that?

Another suggestion came up last week around getting young people involved in putting in place the policies for their school. This would be hugely effective. As Mr. Holmes has said, young people know a lot more and are a lot more advanced in some ways than we might think. In the context of a more democratic approach to schooling in the State, young people are catching us up, not the other way around.