Mr. David Byrne:

My colleagues at the ISSU made the argument for the provision of information, digital websites, etc., as well as could be made. I will go back to the point about the parent being the primary teacher or carer. That is an important point. I agree with it, but there seems to be a shift as we are putting ever more responsibility onto teachers to educate young people about everything. We seem to be forgetting that responsibility and that relationship between the teacher and the parent. There is an ecology of learning in that regard. The parent is at the centre of it and the school is the next ring out. In the school linking up with parents and raising awareness of these kind of issues with parents and helping parents to understand some of these difficult issues, some parents will obviously struggle to have conversations around sex, sexuality and gender with their children. Raising awareness and helping out as much as we can would be a positive step forward because the burden cannot be on teachers alone. We need to spread it as widely as we can.