Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome all our speakers and thank them for their fascinating and important insights on these important issues. I was touched, in particular, by the roots of empathy programme and how it is working and I was also interested to hear in some cases it involves a mum or a dad and, in some cases, both. That prompts me to ask Ms Connolly if there any studies on the impact of father absence on bullying. It is an issue people are often reluctant to talk about. I read an article from theAnnual Review of Sociology, which examined the evidence of the consequences of father absence. There seems to be strong evidence it can affect children’s social and emotional development, particularly by increasing externalising behaviour. While we need to be careful how we talk about that, is that an issue we need to talk about if we are serious about addressing the problems?