Olwyn Enright (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)

What evaluation has the Department carried out of the success rate of the SPHE anti-bullying element? Has the Minister seen statistics reflecting a reduction in bullying? Is the Minister aware of the programme carried out by Dr. Mona O'Moore in Trinity College and that an evaluation of it showed a reduction of 50% among those frequently victimised and a reduction of 69.2% in reports of those frequently carrying out bullying? That was properly evaluated and shows a high level of success. This pilot project was allowed to get off the ground in 1998 in response to a sad tragedy that occurred as a result of bullying and we all know of other tragedies in similar circumstances.

Does the Minister feel current provision is sufficient? If the Department felt such a project was necessary in 1998 and if it has been shown to be so successful it has been adopted by the Norwegian Government, why have we not allowed it to expand to the extra 140 schools? It is not even a huge financial burden. Why could we not find €26,000 in the resources of the Department of Education and Science to allow for a video that has also been successful to go out to schools? Why can we not facilitate some level of in-service training to allow this to roll out?

See this speech in context