Ms Mary Cregg:

The Department's actions are all either under way or significant progress has been made on a range of actions, including the work of the NCCA, which I have referenced, and the NTRIS pilot programmes.

There are two aspects to bullying. The Department commissioned research from the anti-bullying centre in DCU, which examined the effectiveness of the Department's anti-bullying procedures for Traveller students. That research is being finalised for publication. It does not reflect the prevalence of bullying within the system. There were only a small number of Travellers who responded to say that they had experienced bullying within the school system. The findings also indicate the experience of how schools reacted to it, both positive and negative. That research is being finalised for publication. One of the key aspects that came through from it, which reflects the data and the statistics, is that Traveller children and their parents generally reported a positive experience in primary school but more difficulties as teenagers went through post-primary. This is not unexpected.

On anti-bullying measures, the Department is commencing a review of its anti-bullying action plan from 2013. This review will take account of developments and relevant research, including the baseline research from a NTRIS pilot. It will also take into account research that has been done by DCU. A lot of time has passed since 2013. The review will also give detailed consideration to recommendations contained within the Oireachtas joint committee report on school bullying. This will involve consultation and collaboration, including with various representative groups. The Department's inspectorate is currently prioritising the monitoring and gathering of information about the implementation of anti-bullying measures in schools, which complements this work. This will help with the overall piece of promoting a positive school culture and climate.

On the Traveller further education strategy, I believe that the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, referred to this in his earlier engagement with committee. We will work with the Departments of Children and Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science.The original report and recommendations for a Traveller education strategy were put together in 2006. We are completing a review of what has happened in the interim. This will inform what we will look at, in conjunction with the feedback from the Traveller representative groups and in the context of where we are at right now. There are gaps still. We know that 22% making it to leaving certificate level in mainstream schools is simply not in line with what happens with the rest of the population. We must look to see what are the issues that need to be addressed and targeted, in a systemic way, to ensure those completion rates are improved.

The Deputy asked about the primary to post-primary transition rate. The Departments retention reports look at those children who entered into post-primary and then made it to the leaving certificate. There is no composite report on primary to post-primary rates. The primary online database and the post-primary online databases, POD and P-POD, were introduced around 2016. Prior to that, Traveller education statistics were gathered in an aggregated fashion and, therefore, it is not possible to track. Certainly, as part of the work we will engage on as part of the overall NTRIS, we will look at the need for disaggregated data. We now have Traveller ethnicity as a self-identifier within the primary and post-primary online databases, so the facility is there now to look more closely at what we can do with the data we have. Interestingly, we are aware from a NTRIS pilot that a lot of the students do not self-identify as Travellers. That is something that we would want to examine to ensure that Traveller students are proud, and we would want to investigate the reasons behind involuntary self-identification. We are not forcing anybody to identify as a Traveller but we would like to reach a stage where people felt they would be proud and willing to self-identify as a Traveller within the system.

The primary to post-primary transition piece is something that we can look at. From previous data I am aware that the transition rate had increased steadily. It had been quite poor at one stage but it had increased, from figures in previous submissions to previous Oireachtas committees. At the moment we do not have a retention report. That is certainly something, in the context of disaggregated data, that we can look at.