Olwyn Enright (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)

A year ago, when this House debated a Fine Gael motion on school discipline, the Minister for Education and Science minimised the extreme difficulties that schools have faced in dealing with discipline problems due to section 29 of the 1998 Education Act. Referring to the debate as alarmist, she said that schools could overcome difficulties with the 1998 legislation if they had proper procedures in place.

The penny has finally dropped. I welcome this legislation, late as it is, and the attempt that is finally being made to address the imbalance in the legislation to give schools more authority in how they deal with challenging or unacceptable behaviour.

There are several aspects to this legislation but clearly the most important purpose of this Bill is to amend section 29 of the 1998 Education Act. For this reason, I do not propose to concentrate on the amendments this Bill makes to the 1998 Education Act to take account of the enactment of the 2000 Education Welfare Act, and the later establishment of the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, the National Educational Psychological Service, the State Examinations Commission and the National Council for Special Education, although I may table amendments on Committee Stage.

Section 29 of the 1998 Education Act sets out the mechanism by which a parent or student who has reached the age of 18 may appeal against a decision of a school to expel, suspend or refuse to enrol same student. This appeal must be made to the Secretary General of the Department of Education and Science, with the existing legislation stipulating that an appeals committee, comprising at least one inspector, will be appointed by the Minister to hear the case. For some considerable time, however, there have been difficulties in the operation of the legislation. Most seriously, schools have been placed in the most unacceptable situation where valid and necessary expulsions have been overturned.

The Irish Vocational Education Association highlighted this problem when commenting that some previously expelled pupils returned to their schools "with a swagger, having achieved a victory against the school authorities". This situation undermines the authority of individual teachers, and of the school itself, to insist on a reasonable level of proper behaviour. Also, the message this sends out to young people is that there is no action that can be taken against unacceptable behaviour. This is a very unwise message for our school system and for broader society. In 2005 alone, the Department of Education and Science overturned eight expulsions and three suspensions at post-primary level.

A further problem with section 29 of the 1998 Education Act is that the legislation fails to refer to the behaviour of the student which may have lead to the problem in the first instance. In addition, the legislation does not mention the needs of all pupils at the school, and how they are being adversely affected by poor behaviour, or even to the health and safety needs of teachers, students and other people employed at the school.

These are serious legislative lapses and I was surprised to hear the Minister minimise the problems that schools face in ensuring acceptable discipline when I raised this matter last year. It was all the more surprising given that the interim report of the task force on student behaviour, which was available to all of us last February, made it clear that section 29 was being used to undermine the authority of schools in expelling seriously disruptive students, and found that this was leading to schools being forced to accept as students young people previously expelled for seriously disruptive behaviour. The task force also noted that in these cases, the student returns to the school secure in the knowledge that there is no real action the authorities can take against their unacceptable behaviour.

The draft proposals we are debating this morning include a number of provisions which go some way towards addressing the deficiencies in the 1998 legislation. Under these new proposals, an appeals committee shall now consider: the nature, scale and persistence of the behaviour of the student; the reasonableness of the efforts made by the school to accommodate the student; the educational interests of the student; the educational interests of all other students at the school; the safety, health and welfare of all students, teachers and other staff at the school; and the policies of the school regarding such behaviour and related issues.

This is a step forward but I remain concerned that if this legislation is enacted schools may still find themselves in the situation whereby they are forced to re-admit a pupil who, through his or her own unacceptable behaviour, has been suspended or expelled from the school.

When this legislation reaches Committee Stage, I will submit amendments to improve the position of schools in dealing with unacceptable behaviour. I have said many times we must not emasculate schools regarding how they deal with this issue. We must respect the fact that the decision to suspend or expel a student is never taken lightly, and direct our legislation to acknowledge this fact. For this reason, the legislation should be amended so that it is absolutely clear that where a committee examining an appeal comes to certain conclusions, then that appeal committee could only in the most exceptional of cases recommend overturning the decision of the school to expel or suspend a student.

The conclusion that the appeals committee would have to come to would be as follows: a school had acted properly, in terms of notifying the student and his or her parents at each step of the process towards suspension or expulsion; it had acted reasonably, in terms of taking the final decision to expel or suspend the student; it had acted in accordance with its policies; and that these policies were well-communicated to all students and their families. Where an appeals committee is of the belief that these three conditions have been met by the school authorities, overturning the decision of the school must only be taken in the most exceptional of cases. Inserting this type of clear statement into the legislation will recognise that schools do not act lightly in this matter and will empower them further to deal with seriously disruptive and unacceptable behaviour. This would be good for schools, for teachers, for all students and for our young people.

I am also concerned that the draft legislation does not place a specific onus on the appeals committee in respect of students suspended or expelled for reasons due to violence or the threat of violence. I understand the Department of Education and Skills in Britain has introduced guidelines of this type which state that schools will not normally reinstate a student expelled for this reason. The absence of a specific reference to this issue in these proposals is not acceptable.

This is particularly appropriate given the recent attack on a teacher at a school in Dublin. Following this attack, a teacher has been left with a broken nose and several broken teeth. This is a matter that will be considered by the school board of management and is under investigation by the Garda Síochána, so I will not speculate further on this case. However, it unfortunately is just the most recent example of violence against a teacher. I will also table an amendment on this matter on Committee Stage.

Some of the difficulties that schools face in dealing with unacceptable behaviour stem without doubt from under-funding in our education system. For example, half of all primary schools still have no access to the National Educational Psychological Service almost a decade since the service was established. Many young children who need assistance are being left behind and by the time they reach second-level schooling are growing increasingly frustrated with the system. This contributes to poor classroom behaviour. Access to essential services is, undoubtedly, important from an educational point of view. These services, however, also contribute to children and young people settling into school properly, and go a long way to improving the classroom and school environment.

Our trainee teachers must be given all the necessary assistance in dealing with disruptive behaviour in the best possible way. Some inexperienced teachers, when presented with a case of serious indiscipline, may simply not know the best way in which this can be handled. In these circumstances, a discipline problem might be exacerbated by inappropriate action from an inexperienced teacher. All possible assistance should be given to new teachers to ensure that this does not happen.

An expansion of the home-school liaison service should be prioritised so that problems in the home environment which may contribute to indiscipline can be properly assessed and assisted, along with greater co-operation between the Department of Education and Science and the HSE.

Guidance services in place in schools are poor at best. Schools with an enrolment of less than 200 pupils receive only eight hours career guidance counselling per week. Guidance counsellors could play an important role in improving the school environment through one-to-one and group involvement with students but at present are completely snowed under due to a lack of adequate resources. Serious breaches of school discipline, or threatening behaviour against teachers, should be reported immediately to the Department of Education and Science, which should know the schools facing the greatest discipline challenges when allocating resources. I welcome that the Minister has decided to assign behavioural support to 50 schools. A further 74 schools have sought such support. The Minister would accept that schools would not make such an application lightly. When can the other 74 schools hope to have the support provided? What exactly will the unit comprise? Will it be a separate classroom or a group of people operating within the school as a whole? Will some of the 50 schools experience space constraints to facilitate the unit and if so what steps will be taken to address that problem?

Building a culture of acceptable behaviour in our schools has many dimensions. It is important to enable schools to deal with unacceptable behaviour properly and amend section 29 of the Education Act 1998. Resources are also key. Other areas also require action from the Government, particularly tackling drug and alcohol abuse among young people and ensuring that bullying is stamped out when and where it happens. Bullying is a deeply destructive behaviour that can have long-term negative consequences for individuals. In some extreme cases it can lead to suicide. Tackling both student discipline problems and bullying behaviour at school in tandem with each other would have a longer-term positive effect throughout society. Young people must be given clearer guidance and direction when their behaviour is unacceptable.

Recent studies have shown an unacceptably high rate of bullying in our schools. It is of grave concern that many teachers appear to feel unable to challenge certain types of bullying, for example homophobic bullying, especially when four of every five teachers are aware of verbal bullying using homophobic terms and 16% of them reported incidences of physical bullying in a homophobic context. To take a longer-term view, workplace bullying costs Irish business up to €3 billion per annum through poor productivity and absenteeism. The children and young people of today will be the workers of tomorrow. They must learn that unacceptable behaviour at school, whether it is directed at teachers or their peer students, will be tackled when and where it occurs. This would also have a positive effect in tackling workplace bullying in later life. Bullying is a vicious and destructive behaviour that must be addressed. Children who are bullied cannot be left without support and help, particularly given that it can take generations for bullying to leave a family. I call on the Minister to introduce a national anti-bullying strategy in all schools immediately.

The young people of today have unprecedented access to hard drugs and alcohol. The extent of the problem that faces us is considerable. The European school survey project on alcohol and other drugs showed that Irish boys and girls aged 16 years are among the highest alcohol abusers in Europe in terms of binge drinking and drunkenness. Some 16% of boys and 12% of girls in the 12 to 14 age group are regular drinkers. In the 15 to 17 age group half of boys and girls are regular drinkers and drunkenness is commonplace. There is documented use of cocaine, cannabis, ecstasy and opiates by 15 year olds, and these drugs are undoubtedly being used by younger children also. It is abundantly clear that young people can gain easy access to drugs and alcohol. I know the Minister will agree that this is having a profoundly negative effect on many young people. They are being confirmed in bad and dangerous habits at a young age. Their education and that of their peers is being damaged. Drug and alcohol abuse at a young age is contributing to poor school performance and early school drop out. Most seriously, it is causing serious harm to their health.

We all know that peer pressure can be a major factor in how young people behave. The need to be part of the group undoubtedly leads to some young people experimenting with alcohol or drugs, often against their better judgment. We must give schools the tools and the support to tackle this problem as effectively as possible. We need to consider the problem creatively, and examine new initiatives which could help to rid schools of the scourge of alcohol and drug abuse, and to empower young people to resist peer pressure.

The existence of a voluntary random drug-testing scheme in schools would counteract this peer pressure. For the first time, young people would be able to refuse to smoke that joint or pop that pill on the basis that there would be a very real chance they might be caught. This would give young people, who might feel pressurised into taking drugs or alcohol, a way to just say no. If a school decides to introduce random drug testing and if consent for this is given by parents or guardians, the Department of Education and Science should support this decision. Each school management authority should be asked to decide whether it wishes to introduce random tests for drug and alcohol abuse. If in favour, the school management should contact all parents and guardians and ask for their written consent that their child be included in any future random checks. Tackling the scourge of alcohol and drug abuse is highly relevant to this debate, as tackling illegal drug use will contribute to building the type of atmosphere that we all want to see in place in our schools.

I would like to see greater clarity on the issue of enrolments and intend to table amendments in this regard on Committee Stage. I accept what the Minister said in her speech in this regard. However, one of the hardest issues to tackle in the legislation is that in some cases children are not being refused enrolment. Rather schools are adopting a policy of advising parents to wait and see, and come back later. I recently came across the case of a child who tried to get into six different of schools, none of which refused him. They all claimed not to have space but asked him to come back to them in a few weeks. The child never got a letter advising that he could not enrol because the school was full. I was advised that as he had not been refused enrolment, he could not avail of the section 29 procedures. It is unfair to leave any child in that situation. He is effectively unable to gain a place but has not been actually refused a place. That issue should be addressed in the Bill.

See this speech in context