Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I appreciate and acknowledge the huge body of work that this committee has been involved in on bullying. The report was published just last month and I am in the process of working my way through it. I am very positively disposed towards working with many of the recommendations. Specifically, it is important to make a first step. That is why it will be a very positive learning experience in terms of the information that is gathered by our inspectorate. From that will follow other steps. I have an absolute openness to looking at many of the steps that the committee advocates. To be fair, I think there will be a very positive learning experience from either the incidental inspection reports this year or indeed the full inspections next year.

In terms of Deputy's question on middle management, a total of 1,700 leadership posts have been invested in our primary schools since 2017. This has led to one in three of teachers in primary schools holding promoted positions. I want to acknowledge that. I also want to acknowledge that there is always opportunity to do more and to progress. We are conscious that we are coming into budget time. Significant progress has been made but there is always room to go further. I have a plethora of asks in terms of budget, and I will be pursuing as many as I can.