Dr. Niall Muldoon:

Ms Ward spoke about this. If we got the early years remit, that would bring almost every child in the country in at a much earlier stage than was the case previously. We would have to look at our resources in that regard. It would change what we would need from people. That is something we would always look at. We consistently review our legislation. Our last review was conducted two years ago and we have a number of requests. Early years was probably one of the biggest areas we examined. We are constantly reviewing things to make sure they are up to date.

As Ms Ward referenced, education is another area where complaints are more complicated. People come to us with complaints about bullying and want somebody to be declared as a bully and we cannot do that. Our recommendations are always written without binding power and it is always the tension to wonder whether we should or should not have binding recommendations. Internationally, the recognised standard is that ombudsmen do not have binding recommendations because if the recommendations are binding, what happens is that as soon as the first letter is sent, people lawyer up. That is not what we want in schools. We want local resolutions and things to happen as quickly as possible to reduce the issue. However, we always keep those points in mind.

We are now examining the concept of mediation. Perhaps mediation could be something we could work on and try to engage with, whether the mediation is with us or we encourage it in other areas. The area of education has become much more fraught. Parents are asking more of educators and are challenging them more. There is also the fact that the education system is set up as a closed loop. If a parent makes a complaint, he or she has to complain to the teacher he or she probably has a concern about, then complain to the teacher's principal and if that is not good, go to the teacher's board of management, and that is it. It is a really closed loop and that is not the way most complaint systems work. For instance, the HSE has an independent, separate complaints system that takes the complaint on for someone. We need to think of having that within education, in terms of who can actually insist on something being done within the education system? The Department of education has a long-standing hands-off approach. There are 4,000 autonomous schools so therefore parents are unsure of where to go.