Ms Annette Honan:

When we visited schools, the Senator's question was one that was on our minds. We met with groups of teachers, students, school leaders and parents across a variety of 20 schools as part of the review. We did not fudge the issue. We asked directly if school ethos was a barrier to more effective RSE and if it was inhibiting participants, in any way, in addressing topics across the curriculum. As Dr. Sullivan has said, it did not come up unprompted. Generally, participants did not say that it was an issue, apart from in a minority of instances. For the most part, they identified other areas that were much more of an issue in terms of enabling them to become more effective or disabling them, as the case may be. That came back to issues of clarity around what to teach, access to an up-to-date curriculum and up-to-date resources, and professional development. These areas were all of a much higher priority.

We also engaged with management bodies, trustees and representative bodies. Some of them are directly quoted in our report. One of them said:

We are really keen to address the myth that Catholic schools are standing in the way of good RSE. It is the view of Le Chéile [a collection of Catholic schools] that schools' first duty is to educate and care for students. Students need to get information and have a right to this knowledge so that they can make informed decisions.

That was typical of the response of some of the church representative groups. On how it is transacting on the ground, we do not doubt that there are mixed experiences. Indeed, sometimes individual teachers might have a perception that school ethos is a barrier. We need to address that. However, there are other more systemic and fundamental issues to be addressed as well. Taking it in isolation is not really helpful.