Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

I personally have noticed a distinct change since I was a Minister of State at the Department of Education and Science with special responsibility for children on the whole issue of bullying. When I visited schools then, bullying was the number one issue but now in any of my dealings with the children whom we have consulted it does not come up as an issue. That is striking and the reason for that is it is being tackled at school level — because children are more aware of it, more vocal about it and involved in it, they are not highlighting it as a problem while realising they must deal with it.

See this speech in context