Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein)
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I confirm that I am in Leinster House.

I am sure everyone has been following the hearings. which have been enlightening but also upsetting at times. There is some cause for hope. At all times we were aware that we were dealing with a difficult but enormously important topic. Something that has stayed with me is the fact that bullying has always been a major problem but now it follows children home and, in some instances, it follows staff home. This makes it all the more insidious. Nobody wants to see bullying in our schools and I include the Department in that. Good work is ongoing and I want to acknowledge that. I welcome the fact that a pilot programme on restorative justice is to be rolled out and I hope the witnesses can expand on that. Almost every submission we received referred to the importance of restorative justice.

Having said all that, more can be done and I will focus my questions on that. One issue that came up repeatedly was the fact that there is no centralised collection of data. We do not have enough information on how many incidents are arising, whether they are transphobic, racist, anti-Traveller or whether they involve physical violence, for example, and that is holding us back. If we do not fully understand the problem, we are not going to be able to tackle it properly. Are there any proposals to ensure that we can centralise data such as that because that would be of value?

The other issue is the 2013 document, which remains the cornerstone of the Department's policy. The document is eight years old and an awful lot has changed in that time. There was no TikTok then and the social media picture was very different. In so many contexts, circumstances are very different now. We need to update that document and I would like the Department to outline where that stands because things are evolving very quickly.

There is talk of reforming the RSE and SPHE curricula, which is important. I have expressed the view that there are issues with the RSE curriculum that could lend themselves to the othering of students, particularly those in the LGBTQI community. I believe that access to counselling is vitally important but that is a broader issue, which also involves the Department of Health.

My primary questions centre on data, the appropriateness of the Department's policy document and whether it needs to be updated.