Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)

I welcome the motion and compliment the Fine Gael spokesperson on bringing it before the House. I listened to the Minister's contribution to the debate. Perhaps she should do more listening and less lecturing. This is a sensible motion. We, as politicians, listen regularly to constituents' complaints with regard to problems within schools.

Bullying is a serious issue. A school friend of mine was bullied at school but went on to do well in education. However, every time he was interviewed for a job, the effects of bullying caused him to stutter. That poor man was affected but he never received the support he needed from the State when the problem was identified. He went on to get a fine job but it took him many years to do so. He had to go to the private sector to have his problem dealt with. He, rather than the State, paid for the treatment to correct his problem, which had been caused by school bullying.

Teaching is not an easy job. Teachers feel frustrated because they believe the State has not provided the support and training they need. We must be honest in this regard. Society has changed and its structure has broken down, resulting in increasing problems, many of which are brought into the schools. Teachers are faced with problems they did not have to face 20 or 30 years ago. It is a different ball game now. Teachers find it increasingly difficult to control their classes and serious situations have resulted.

Support from the State is not evident. When teachers have a problem, they are vulnerable due to the lack of support from boards of management and the Department of Education and Science. While talking about support, one thing the Government has been good at is providing support to programme managers and those spinning the message to the media. Every year, I am told how much money will be invested in education in deprived areas, where schools will have special finance, special teachers, special this and special that. Why then do so many parents who have children with special needs come to my constituency office to complain that their children cannot be dealt with? Why are these parents frustrated? Why do they feel nobody is listening to them and that there is no support and nobody to help them? Why do public representatives attend so many public meetings with regard to education, particularly education for the disadvantaged or children with special needs? As there are not enough such parents to create a political storm, they feel nobody is listening to them.

The Constitution states that all children should be treated equally but this is not the case. The strong do well and the weak fall behind — all reports point to this conclusion. I hope the Minister and her Department will listen to our case. They should put resources where they are badly wanted, namely, into disadvantaged schools and areas which need support and funding. Teachers are vulnerable. There are so many problems they do not know how to deal with them.

During the Christmas period, I visited a family who suffered a serious tragedy when one member of the family committed suicide. I compliment Deputy Neville and Dr. John Connolly as two of the only people I hear discussing the issue of suicide, which is a serious problem in this country. I recently heard that coroners' reports give the benefit of the doubt in certain cases as they do not wish to upset families. This means there are more suicides than are reported because coroners say a death was caused by misadventure, and it is left at that. Two previous suicides had occurred in the family and on the night after Christmas the mother dropped dead when she heard her son had committed suicide. On the same night her two brothers also died and her husband's brother died in the same week. I never saw such a thing in my life.

Last week I wrote to the Health Service Executive asking that a social worker or other professionally qualified person deal with the family. The HSE sent out the community nurse. While she does a good job and is a very good person, she was not trained to deal with that family. While we have been told each day that the services are available, this is not true. It is time for the Government to provide the money for the services that are needed.

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