Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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I welcome the Ombudsman for Children, Dr. Muldoon, and his team and thank them for making themselves available. I congratulate Dr. Muldoon on his promotion since I last spoke to him in his office. He will be aware of my strong views on his role with respect to schools and their boards of management. I remind colleagues that it was this week 12 months ago that the joint committee discussed this issue with departmental officials, trade union representatives and other stakeholders. Members were aghast at that meeting when they learned from officials that neither the Department nor the Minister has any role or function in addressing parents' complaints or grievances arising from decisions taken by school boards of management. Most members will recall that this point was clarified in stark terms by departmental officials at the meeting.

As a result of the meeting last October, I published legislation seeking to extend the remit of the Office of the Ombudsman for Children to cover issues and grievances held by parents, teachers and other school staff. There is no avenue for appeal when grievances arise. This morning, I introduced First Stage of a Bill proposing to amend the Education Act. I noted that one has a right of appeal when one is given a parking ticket, whereas there are no mechanisms in place to deal with grievances that arise from decisions taken by school boards and authorities in the education sector. These decisions affect our single greatest resource, namely, our children, yet they are not subject to any appeal mechanism when people have grievances about them.

I thank Dr. Muldoon for his comprehensive opening statement. He quickly got to the nub of the issue when he admitted that the Office of the Ombudsman for Children is the only show in town in this matter as no other avenues of appeal are available. With respect to his office, however, the problem has always been that it does not have powers of compulsion or direction. It can encourage and suggest but it does not have powers to direct or compel. For this reason, I am seeking the establishment of a dedicated education ombudsman who would have the powers to direct schools to behave in accordance with natural laws and justice. It is to our great shame that we do not have such a mechanism in place in 2015, despite a budget of €8.2 billion being provided for education every year.

It suits the Department of Education and Skills not to have an ombudsman for education as the current position reflects the wishes of many of the vested interests in education. My Bill will receive greater opposition than anything else I will do because it upsets the status quoand vested interests. It suits people to have a closed shop in which boards of management say and do what they like without anyone being able to hold them to account. We saw distasteful and incorrect practices in Rehab and other boards. I hold the Ombudsman for Children in high regard and I compliment his office on the work it does for a group of children who are very close and dear to my heart because I have the privilege of sharing my home with some of them. I refer to children in State care. The Ombudsman for Children has blazed a trail in highlighting this issue which is one that nobody wants to speak about or address. I commend his office on taking on that issue and numerous other issues.

The annual report of the Ombudsman for Children refers to the case of a pregnant teenage girl whose application to be enrolled at a local school was refused because of her pregnancy. After having her baby, the school refused again to enrol her because its ethos precluded it from educating a single mother. These decisions are an indictment of all of us. We should hang our heads in shame that a publicly-funded school made such a decision. As Dr. Muldoon noted, the school which refused a pregnant girl an education and subsequently refused her entry again when she became a young mother did not have a board of management. A single person acts as its owner. When the Office of the Ombudsman for Children contacted the Department on the matter of policy direction for schools, it found that the Department does not have legal powers to instruct individuals to follow a particular course of action with regard to individual complaints, despite being the paymaster. This is an appalling scenario. Who is in charge of the education sector when something goes wrong? While I accept that a great deal of good is being done in education, someone must take responsibility when things go wrong. There are many aggrieved parents.

In fairness to the Ombudsman for Children's office, it did what it could. For example, it wrote to the school seeking paperwork on the case to which I referred. The school did not comply with this request and subsequently did not engage when the office sought a meeting. It also refused its request that it apologise to the girl in question and made no effort with the Office of the Ombudsman for Children to rectify the matter. I am appalled by this case.

This example shows that, unfortunately, the Office of the Ombudsman for Children does not have the powers needed to direct a school to have an enrolment policy which treats people in a natural, open and just manner. The absence of such a policy is the reason I am determined to see the introduction of an ombudsman for education which would have real teeth and powers to get to the nub of this issue and be able to compel rather than encourage schools to do the right thing. I do not mean in any way to be derogatory towards the role of the Office of the Ombudsman for Children but if a parent were to contact with me a grievance, I would be more inclined to advise him or her to ring Joe Duffy than to contact the Ombudsman for Children. I am not being facetious when I say this but the Dr. Muldoon does not have powers to compel or direct people who are misbehaving to behave. All he can do is suggest and recommend. If a parent complains on "Liveline", he or she may or may not get more satisfaction. That is my difficulty.

I appreciate the number of references Dr. Muldoon made to the failure to heed concerns his office had consistently made over the years regarding the complaints architecture in education. The Garda Síochána, with a budget of €1.2 billion, is subject to the Garda Inspectorate, Policing Authority and Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission. How many of us interact with the Garda Síochána? We may do so once or twice in a lifetime but parents interact with the education system daily without having available to them any means or vehicle to have a complaint addressed. While the Ombudsman for Children may accept a complaint, he does not have the power to compel people to do the right thing.

Does the Ombudsman for Children support my proposal for the establishment of an ombudsman for education? Will he quantify the number of complaints his office has received since its inception in 2004 that related specifically to educational matters and the number of these which were subsequently investigated?

I thank the Chairman for showing such latitude.