Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I echo some of the sentiments that have been expressed. I am a former teacher so with much of the training that teachers received over the years, even back to my old HDip days, I still never felt fully prepared to deal with the most serious bullying instances that might present themselves in a school. Much of the bullying was low-level stuff so required little intervention. In terms of the more serious type of incidents, I never felt fully trained up or prepared to deal with many of instances that presented themselves over the years.

My next question on data is for all three of the witnesses. There is legislation coming through in Northern Ireland that will oblige the Department for Education to compile the data that was discussed earlier. I suppose they will make use of it whether it is, to target any response or support at specific schools and areas where there is a demonstrable problem or a surge in bullying behaviour, cyberbullying or whatever. Can I take it from what the witnesses have said that they broadly support something? Would they support a similar initiative here whereby somebody in the Department of Education would be responsible for data collection? As they said, at many board of management meetings, that data on the various types of bullying instances is probably being hoarded across the country. The big thing about the legislation in the North, which will be brought in, is that it details the specifics of the bullying accusation so whether it is gender-oriented, based on somebody's sexual orientation, ethnicity-based or whatever the case may be. I ask the witnesses to expand on the role of a database here.