Gerard Craughwell (Independent)
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Everybody in this room is in agreement on the matter in any case.

Reference was made to a case where a student became pregnant and subsequently sought to return to school as a mother. What this case illustrates is that we really are a nation with two sets of standards. We apply particular standards to one issue but all those nice principles go out the window in another area. We must deal with those types of situations urgently. One of the outcomes I see through Dr. Muldoon's office is that schools will be subjected to additional inspections. We are all aware of cases where a board of management - or, in the case of the particular school to which I referred, a person acting as de factoboard of management - can essentially run roughshod over the system. I agree with Deputies Jim Daly and O'Brien that the funding agency which should be taking responsibility is the Department of Education and Skills. We are pumping tens of thousands of euro into schools but one person can make a decision, which the board of management, if there is one, will uphold. By the time the appeals process has been gone through, we have wasted the ombudsman's time and that of parents, legal advisers and all the other people involved. It makes no sense that staff should be penalised by way of the imposition of more inspections because a board of management or an individual made a decision, as in this case, not to allow a young pregnant girl into the school. What sort of a nonsense outcome is that and who thinks up such things? It beggars belief that it goes on.

I agree with Deputy Jim Daly that for every outcome in the ombudsman's office, there should be some form of compellability to force the organisation or individuals concerned to do the right thing and, where they do not do so, there should be recourse to the courts. I am not sure whether Deputy Jim Daly wants the proposed ombudsman for education to come in under the Ombudsman for Children or to have a separate office entirely. He might clarify that for us. In either case, the new ombudsman must have that compellability function, that is, the ability to bring these people before the law and force them to adopt the recommendation which, after all, the ombudsman's office is highly skilled and well tasked to make.