Ms Moira Leydon:

I am very conscious that it is rather late in the day. We started late and have a full house. I will, therefore, use the Obama technique, that is, say three things and try to say them efficiently and effectively.

My broad opening remark is that the ASTI broadly welcomes the legislation. We have a preference for one approach, on which I will elaborate. The measures are reflective of the changes in our society and a timely and judicious response to aspects of the education system that are not perceived to be working as well as they might be.

In the past decade we have introduced what I would describe as a strong accountability framework in education. Each year the inspectorate conducts over 1,000 visits to schools at both primary and second level. Eight hundred reports are published on our website every year. We have the Teaching Council fitness-to-practise guidelines, etc. This is really just another part of the jigsaw in making sure there is not only equality in the education system but also, more importantly, accountability, transparency and fairness. That is very much the frame within which the draft legislation has been developed and within which we perceive it.

With regard to the proposals made in the charter legislation, they address what the trade unions have stated explicitly during the years. We need a national standardised and common complaints procedure across the system. At present, there are voluntary agreements between the management bodies and the teacher unions that differ from sector to sector. Certainly, the commitment in the charter to bring forward statutory national guidelines will remove many anomalies and certainly make my life and that of my trade union official colleagues easier because we are dealing with a transparent system. It is also reflective of what are perceived, unfortunately, to be weaknesses in the system.

Deputy Jim Daly has to be commended for the way in which he kick-started this process. We do not actually agree that his legislation is possibly the best way to proceed, but I believe he has done us all a very valuable service by kick-starting the debate. The reason we would prefer the charter legislation is that we believe it is more comprehensive. On the one hand, it is about dealing with complaints, but, more significantly, from the perspective of legislators, it is trying to change cultures in order that complaints would not emerge in the first place. It is trying to embed better communication, accountability and transparency cultures in schools. That is really what legislation should do; it should not micromanage problems; rather, when one is dealing with wide public sector social goods such as education, it should seek to direct cultural change.

The second point we make to Deputy Jim Daly is that the proposal made in his legislation to have a separate ombudsman for children would, in the first instance, not be so practical. More importantly, it would undermine what this society has struggled to achieve in the past 20 years, but we are getting there pretty well. I refer to an holistic focus on the child. The bit of the child that goes to school is the same bit that may need to go to a social worker, the HSE or other body. The current model of the Ombudsman for Children is the most appropriate, particularly in the light of national strategy in Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures, which is a very integrated public policy approach to children.

I have just two more points to make. To quote an aphorism always attributed to Einstein, it is the essence of lunacy to keep doing the same thing and expecting something different. I am very much putting on my trade union hat. This cultural change that the legislation is aimed at achieving cannot and will not succeed unless we seriously consider the way in which schools are run and facilitated to run with resources and middle management. My trade union colleagues will have strong points to make on that issue. If the legislation is expected to succeed in spirit, we cannot keep doing the same old thing, namely, bring in another model of change, while not actually supporting the internal processes to deliver that change.

Trade unions are extremely concerned to ensure the legislation will get the balance of fairness right.