Mr. Hubert Loftus:

Developing that point, the idea and rationale for the charter is about helping to ensure there is consistency throughout 3,000 schools in terms of good and open communication, so that we get to a point whereby matters will not need to progress up the line to complaints and difficulties that cannot be resolved. This charter will be helpful and useful. Our view is that by providing the information to parents, they will understand better why a board makes a decision and are more likely to accept the fairness of that decision, even if they do not agree with the outcome. This is important.

In terms of the accountability of boards to the Minister, I would like to point out that boards are required to comply with the policies of the Minister. Also, section 17 of the Education Act enables the dissolution of a board of management by a patron, at the request of a Minister. This would only happen rarely, but it has been used to deal with issues where the Minister was not satisfied that the functions of a board were being effectively discharged.

In regard to how the interests of parents and students are protected where there is a need for a civil action, we believe the parent and student charter will be an important element in that. Under the current arrangements, where a matter has gone through the grievance procedures, a parent can go to the Ombudsman for Children. There is a process that allows for that. Also, there is an appeals process provided for within the Education Act to deal with higher-level issues such as enrolment, suspension and expulsion. This allows for issues to be dealt with without the need for civil action.

On the issue of floating teachers, I should mention that the other half of my job deals with teacher allocation and redeployment. We operate within constraints such as limits on our teacher numbers and our payroll budget, which make it difficult to add additional teachers to the school system to create supply panels for covering for absences. In the past, when we had a supply panel, that supply panel and the teachers on it were utilised only about 50% of the time. They were on the payroll all the time, but might only be utilised to cover a sick leave absence on a rare occasion in the schools they covered.

The O'Keeffe case related to a period in the early 1970s. The key issue was that there were no child protection procedures and processes in place for such cases to be dealt with. That case was of its time, but there are lessons to be learned from it. The landscape in terms of how child protection is dealt with now - the procedures in place, Children First being on a statutory footing and the other legislation in place - is different. However, this is not to say there are not implications from the case that will be considered. I am not a legal person and cannot answer on every legal aspect of those implications.

On training, notwithstanding the budgetary constraints, the Department provides training and support to school management bodies to help them provide the training to boards. This is very much a demand-led process.

Members made valid points on how we can encourage more people to avail of that training. We will be examining this issue as part of the consultation process on the appointment of new boards of management, in respect of which we are currently engaging stakeholders, with a view to encouraging greater use of web-based training and other ways of facilitating people who otherwise would not have opportunities to attend training sessions.