Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)

This is sending out a very bad message to schools. The Minister has just told the House that over the past three years, one has had a one in two chance of having one's suspension overturned by making an appeal to the Department of Education and Science. In the case of an expulsion, one's chance is better than one in four. That says two things. It tells me that the local decisions of schools about suspensions and expulsions are being second-guessed. It tells disruptive and unruly pupils that if they appeal local decisions to suspend or expel them to the Department of Education and Science, they have quite a good chance of having such decisions overturned. We are sending a very dangerous message to school authorities, which are in the best position to make the right decisions on the range of issues involved in these cases.

In light of the information the Minister has given me today and over the past few months, will he consider examining this issue again? His predecessor, the Minister, Deputy Mary Hanafin, introduced legislation in March 2007 to put in place a much tighter framework for ensuring that we support schools when they have to make decisions of this nature. We need to send a clear message to the tiny minority of students who engage in unacceptable behaviour in our school system that we will take a clear stance against it.

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