Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick East, Labour)

I move amendment No. 6:

In page 4, line 31, to delete ", scale and persistence" and substitute "and scale".

We debated the issue on Committee Stage. The scale and the persistence of behaviour should not be dealt with jointly on appeal. A particular form of behaviour may only happen once but it may be of such scale that it merits either suspension or expulsion. For example, if the behaviour of the child was of a criminal nature or if it was so serious that it caused significant concern to the school, it might be appropriate to suspend the child. On the other hand, persistent but not serious behaviour might not merit suspension. In order to be clear and to allow those dealing with the legislation to make the appropriate decision, we need to separate scale and persistence from each other.

In amendment No. 7, I deal specifically with behaviour prohibited by the civil or criminal law which we need to separate from what might be relatively low scale bad behaviour but which nonetheless is persistent. It is to separate the seriousness from the persistence of behaviour that the amendments are proposed.

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