Paul Connaughton Snr (Galway East, Fine Gael)

I am delighted to contribute to the debate on the Education (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill. I welcome the Bill. Like Deputy O'Connor, I do not have an educational background although a few members of my family are teachers. Something had to be done about disruptive students. I hope this legislation will address the problem but as the Minister is aware there is "many a slip 'tween cup and lip" and legislation brought before the House often takes on a different hue by the time it is passed. However, the Oireachtas is sending a signal to teachers throughout the country that they can expect some help from the establishment in dealing with this problem.

I listened carefully to Deputy O'Sullivan and others who spoke about the other side of this coin and the balance required. I spend a good deal of time speaking to teachers and principals in east Galway and I was told by a principal in a post-primary school there that the disruption can be so bad on occasions that he feels he should wear shin guards to school. Thankfully, those cases are in the minority but one bad apple in the barrel can disrupt the entire class if they are allowed continue with the behaviour. If the class brat is allowed to upset the whole class a copycat syndrome can develop and others in the class will think they can get away with the same behaviour. That is a major problem, particularly in larger schools. Some students can be controlled at a certain level but if they see another student getting away with disruptive behaviour, they will do the same.

Being a principal of a school is a difficult job for a variety of reasons I do not have the time to go into now. Disruptive students take up much teachers' and principals' time. We all appreciate that there must be checks and balances but in regard to corporal punishment the pendulum has swung too far the other way. My generation experienced corporal punishment, and there is no doubt that was a difficult time to be in school; there was not much talk about the rights of children. I have no time for corporal punishment, nor has any other Member, but the pendulum began to swing the other way as happens in modern democracies. In the past eight or ten years in particular, the news got out that a pupil cannot be touched, regardless of what he or she does. Whether that is right or wrong, that is the perception. This legislation will redress that somewhat and I hope the teachers, principals and vice-principals who will examine it when it is passed will believe they are in a slightly better position in that they will now know where the battle lines are drawn, which was not clear previously.

I do not have enough involvement in education to know how the appeal system will work. It appears satisfactory but I assume some clever person will drive a coach and four through it before too long; it is our job to close off any such loopholes if that happens.

I could spend the next half hour rattling off examples of cases involving disruptive students. Some of the students involved are so ferocious in their intent that not only can the teachers not control them but the gardaí are unable to do anything with them. Some students of 13, 14, 17 or 18 years of age are at a stage in their lives that, regardless of the arm of the State involved, even if it is the Garda, they will upset it.

I am aware of some remarkable cases where the disruption was so bad the students were eventually expelled. In one case it took almost two years to do this during which time there were case conferences and outside agencies became involved. While all that was going on the school was being thrashed. That is the problem with this kind of behaviour.

I hope the message goes out from this Chamber that there will be no room in schools for students who are overly disruptive, whose behaviour places other students at a major disadvantage and where the dignity of teachers is impugned. I will address the question of where such students should be placed, because that will have to be done.

I did not hear it mentioned in the debate earlier, and perhaps it is not politically correct to talk about it, but I do not understand the reason all the responsibility for a child's education is placed on the school authorities. Schools play a major role and formal education is one of the most important aspects of a child's upbringing but more emphasis must be put on the family and the parents in the case of disruptive students. Many will argue that if one has responsible parents, one will not have disruptive students. A school principal informed me that he had one of his teachers trailing a family in a large town in County Galway for several months to see why the children were not attending school. The teacher finally met the father who assured him his three children would be at the school the following morning but only if the teacher paid him. No one will doubt there is more trouble in that home than was mentioned at the door to the teacher.

It is against this background that we must consider the other side of the coin. This Bill draws the battle lines and disruptive students will be expelled from the school system. Agencies, therefore, must be put in place to follow their progress outside of the school system. The real disaster is if no one cares what happens to such children. Those children left to their own devices outside of the system will inevitably have a prison term on their CV.

Some parents take no blame for disruptive behaviour. Many teachers have described situations where, after some misdemeanour by a pupil, the parents were asked to attend the school. When informed of the incident, the parents would claim it is not their child who was wrong, it was the teacher. These kinds of parents claim the teachers are failing their children and do not have the skills required to teach. I accept there are bad teachers, just as there are bad Deputies and the odd bad Minister.

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