Michael Colreavy (Sligo-North Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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He left the school and has been taught at home for the last three years. The Department of Education and Skills has paid for the home education of the child. I am not making any judgment whatsoever on the initial cause of this as I only got it second hand, but it is a matter that should have been resolved on the spot and was not. I saw the damage it did to the young student but also to the parents and other family members. It was raised with the board of management and the Ombudsman for Children. I raised it with the Minister. I kept coming back to the same answer to the effect that it was the responsibility of the board of management. That is not the delegation of responsibility, it is its abdication by the Department.

There is no oversight. I read the wholeschool evaluation of that particular school with great interest. Couched in advisory language were findings, which I would not necessarily call adverse but represented advice to the board of management as to what it should do. The people who carried out that wholeschool inspection never spoke with the child or his parents, which is absolutely scandalous. Do the witnesses have any thoughts as to how parents' and students' interests can be protected in the small number of cases such as this without them having to resort, as some people have, to legal action? Is there any possibility of formal oversight and appeals procedures to govern the operation and decisions of boards of management?

I am reluctant to raise a second issue as some people might start jumping up and down and saying that I am trying to close small rural schools. I am certainly not trying to do that. There can be a difficulty in small schools, however, where one has a teacher with recurring periods of illness. Different teachers will come in as locums which interferes with the continuity of the children's education. Is there a possibility of having a floating teacher within the redeployment panel for schools in a catchment area to try to keep that continuity?

Boards are looking for more resources and supports, including training. What form of training, how much will it cost and what impact would it have?