Cecilia Keaveney (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)

I am glad to share time with the Minister in respect of this serious issue. I must declare my interest as a former teacher although in the main I taught not in the Irish system but in other jurisdictions where one encountered other issues pertaining to disruptive pupils and approaches to dealing with them. I spent the afternoon in the company of a secondary school principal and when I mentioned the possibility that I might speak on this issue he replied that it is extremely important to realise that most pupils are not disruptive. It is disingenuous for people to give the impression that the majority of pupils are disruptive. While a small number of people can cause much trouble in a class, the vast majority of pupils attend for the right reasons and want to be there. However, the minority can take up much time.

I wish to compliment the Minister regarding her stance on these issues. I will discuss the task force later. As for considering what is useful when a child is disruptive, it is clear that schools must have a policy on most issues. A school which is clear, sure and confident about itself will put together such policies, which must be of a high standard. I have had my own arguments with the Minister regarding some schools which, possibly because they are new, do not have a reputation for early school leaving on the part of pupils or have not had problems which would prove they are prone to early school leaving. The Minister's argument has been that she does not wish to create an assumption that people would be negatively disposed simply because they come from backgrounds which historically would have predisposed them to be early school leavers, or otherwise. While I argue and debate the issue with the Minister, I commend the idea that she does not label children as being disruptive, as early school leavers, or anything else. She takes the facts and addresses them.

If a school has considered its children's needs and if its board of management has sufficient respect for its students and its partners in education to put together policies of sufficiently high standard on the many issues which must be addressed, the vast majority of students in the school will aspire to the highest standard. This is not stated often enough. We always focus on the negative rather than on the positive. Having discussed this issue with many teachers, children want to know what are the rules and what is expected of them. The higher the bar presented to them, the more they will aspire to that bar. This does not take away from the fact that some people can, for various reasons, cause disruption in a class. Some of those people are causing a disruption in the class on the basis that we accept that all-inclusive education is the right way forward in most situations. There are people coming into the schools with physical or other difficulties and we are embracing many backgrounds and many different difficulties, which are seen by many as challenges but by many schools as opportunities for integration. No matter how one goes about that, it will ultimately cause an issue of difference which must be dealt with. While some would call it a disruption, congratulations are due in this regard to the Minister and to her predecessors in the Department over the past few years.

One of my first debates in this House was ten years ago, bar a couple of months, when I was in Opposition. There was a special school in Buncrana, Scoil Íosagáin, which had a special class for students with moderate difficulties. It was an Adjournment debate and Deputy Allen was the Minister of State in the Department at the time.

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