Mr. Martin Hanevy:

The parent charter was conceived more than five years ago. The elements of the charter related to the Office of the Ombudsman for Children were included because Deputy Jim Daly, in conversation with the Minister, identified particular aspects of the current operation of the system that could be improved. It was an attempt to make improvements.

The last thing I want is to be insulting. The committee, possibly for the first time, asked the Department to provide a briefing on a Private Members' Bill, not just on its own, which is new and part of new politics and so on. In attempting to do this faithfully the only point I was making was that the Bill did not provide for many exemptions. For example, the terms and conditions of teachers are excluded from the legislation covering the Office of the Ombudsman for Children. This means that since there are no boundaries, everything in a school comes before an ombudsman who will be in a binding space or make absolute determinations. The example I used - there is empathy in this - of the row about the composition of the school table was given because one of my colleagues in the office was telling me about the experience in a primary school outside Athlone where the principal's child was on the team when everyone knew ten other children were ahead of him.

Much of the debate is about what happens at the back end.

What we are really trying to do in the charter is change things at the front end. That came from a piece of research a colleague did for a Master's degree about how public services are delivered. If one listens to the people who experience the service wilfully and openly, one can solve many things because one knows what is bothering people and what are their problems. One then minimises the stuff at the back end. In the detail of charter, we see parent power as being very important. In respect of the reporting that must be done within the guidelines, there will be template guidelines so that they are universal. They will have to explain the complaints they received in any one year. Anonymity would have to apply but the totality of the parent body would be able to see exactly what was dealt with in the course of the year. The reputational damage schools can suffer if they do not operate properly under the charter, for example, if a school feels it is going to be damned in the local newspaper, can often be potent in bringing about change.