Mr. John Curtis:

Picking up on a point made by Mr. Mulconry, many of our schools are Catholic denominational schools. In the context of the relationships and sexuality education, RSE, programmes, I am adamant that we have made great progress in recent years regarding inclusion in our schools and having a focus on areas such as homophobia and bullying. The ethos of our schools is predicated on kindness and love, as Mr. Mulconry said. If we are not looking after the interests of every child in our schools, then something is wrong. Those principles are, must be and will continue to be fundamental to everything we do.

The impact of technology has many lessons for us all. I still struggle with aspects of it. If I was a youngster now who was on Facebook, for instance, with likes and dislikes and followers and unfollowers, I think the overall impact of all those aspects on children must be huge. We are still only scratching the surface concerning what technology is doing to the children in our care and that is why we must be so attentive to them. We must place a great emphasis on mental health and resource our schools properly.

I was not whingeing, by the way, when I mentioned the issue of resources for our schools at the start. Our schools are fantastic places and we do so much with the resources we have. The work we would like to do, however, is dependent on the people in our schools having the time to do it. We are concerned that principals have so much on their plates now that perhaps the important matters get left aside because they have been running around following up on other things. When I say I am seeking resources, therefore, I am not doing that in any kind of venal way. Rather, I am seeking those resources from the perspective of trying to support our schools to engage and look after the welfare of the pupils, especially in this difficult and complex time.