Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party)
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I thank the witnesses for their presentations and I wish we had more time to delve into them. It feels very rushed for topics on which we could spend an awful lot more time. I want to quickly mention some of the recurring themes that I am seeing appear between this week and last week, which are around revisiting the anti-bullying procedures, which clearly needs to be done; the collection of data, and I wish had more time to dig down into that with Ms Brady, in particular regarding the atomised data she would be interested in collecting; and the focus on mediation and restorative justice. I want to mention the roots of empathy programme that was mentioned by Ms Connolly; I have seen it in action and it is superb.

I also want to refer to Mr. O'Connor's point about inclusion. Until we see it in our society, I do not know if we are going to see it in our schools. Until we see people working in the supermarkets with those disabilities, or learn to accept them within our own communities as neighbours or friends, it will not happen. That is where we need to go first.

I want to ask a couple of specific questions. On a question to Ms Brady which was also raised by Deputy Ó Laoghaire with regard to LGBTQI+ students, a phrase that jumped out at me is that bullying is rife throughout Irish second level schools. Perhaps this question is speculative but relationships and sexuality education, RSE, particularly in primary school, does not deal adequately with the idea of same-sex relationships or anything to do with that area. Is it Ms Brady's opinion that if we reform that or if we did RSE better at primary school level, we would see more acceptance of people within that community as we move to secondary school?