Mr. Damian White:

The leaving certificate question is not relevant other than to say we have a leaving certificate student and he asked me today why are emotional teenagers forced to learn off Sylvia Plath, especially in a year like this. I will leave that one sit.

On the issue of the impact on students of Covid and on schools getting back after Covid, many schools are just asking for some guidance and the measures that can be put in place for September in order that people can get a break over the holidays and will not have to come back halfway through the holidays or early in August to implement some of measures that will come out then. An early decision on what the regulations will involve and the level of contact that might be expected at that time would be helpful. It is difficult to foresee from three months out, but we could have an outline of the guidance at least.

On the online safety and media regulation Bill, there is need for an ombudsman office to which people could take their complaints. It is only the bones of an idea but it is a consideration. As Mr. Irwin said regarding the Carlow school, sometimes schools end up weathering these issues because they get out of their control. If there was an office to which people could turn, which could, in turn, hold somebody to account, even a private individual, for comments that were posted, it might ease the posting of some of those comments.

Staff do not know who posted comments. Many staff members will be on Facebook but they are on Snapchat or Instagram and there is where much of the material appears. There have been posts on the rate your teacher website and the most vile comments have been posted on some of those sites about perfectly good teachers by somebody who has a gripe for one reason or another and thinks it might be funny or whatever. Perhaps my suggestion of an ombudsman could deal with those issues.