Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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I will come in myself because I want to make a couple of points. I will then take supplementary questions. I know that Deputy Jim Daly wants to speak again. It is important for this to be said at the committee. I know a lot of people through politics, people who are on school boards of management. I have been on one myself for a local community school. There has been a democratic and legal tradition whereby elected representatives were appointed to school boards of management. It is part of the whole VEC and education and training boards structure, whereby there was a notion of democratic accountability, and that schools were for the community. I know a lot of people on school boards of management and they are thoughtful and they put a lot of work into it. They do a lot of soul searching when particular dilemmas come up before them on school boards of management. We need to recognise that while one gets bad cases, there is so much good work done also. If I was asked whether it should be autonomous or State-controlled, I would say that the answer is somewhere in the middle with democratic accountability. Many schools do not have that. It is in the VEC sector - now the education and training boards - but one does not have it in the majority of other schools. That is what I feel.

I have a question about Mr. Walsh's presentation. He said it would appear that no agency is tasked with examining schools, annual reviews or any trends or anomalies that emerge from them in the context of bullying. What about the schools inspectorate? I would have thought it would have a remit with school reports. Am I correct there?