Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I commend Deputy Jonathan O'Brien for introducing this Bill. It is timely and I am encouraged that the Government plans to deal with this in its publication next week. There is no reason, however, why the Bill cannot be supported and allowed to go ahead to Committee Stage, where any necessary amendments can be made.

This legislation is overdue. Guidelines from the 1990s are not sufficient for 2013 and the coming years. This generation of schoolchildren and young people have been immersed in communications technology from a very young age. Anti-bullying guidelines and laws simply do not reflect that; they are out of date.

Our young people deserve to be protected from every type of bullying and I was glad to see that Deputy O'Brien in his Bill set out a comprehensive definition of bullying, specifically including all electronic forms of communication. I also welcome the inclusion of homophobic bullying. This section of the Bill brings anti-bullying policy into the 21st century.

The appointment of a single anti-bullying officer from the board of management is a sensible move because tackling bullying is the responsibility of us all but having a dedicated officer will ensure complaints do not fall through the cracks. Mandatory reporting follows best practice from the Nordic countries and will provide clarity and certainty for teachers, boards of management, parents and students.

Best practice and all the goodwill in the world, however, are not enough when it comes to defeating bullying. We need comprehensive plans to defeat bullying in all its guises. Regulations based on the Department's guidelines need to be produced and need to be reviewed every two years. Bullying is changing as fast as technology and the anti-bullying guidelines need to be able to do so too.

We are all sadly too aware of the effects bullying can have in some cases. Coming from Donegal, and representing the Finn Valley area, it would be remiss of me not to talk about the awful tragedy that unfolded late last year for the Gallagher family. There is no justification for the torment that young girl, Erin Gallagher, was subject to. In the aftermath of Erin's untimely death, there was a huge outpouring of grief from people across Donegal that took the form of Facebook pages and social network comments. There was a genuine outpouring of grief and a genuine desire to do something about bullying and to stamp it out.

Many others, however, took the opportunity, perhaps not deliberately, to hit out at those who were named by Erin Gallagher as her bullies. Those people, we must remember, have just started their teenage years. I read some of the comments on Facebook earlier and selected ten for the debate: "you's lot are murderers", "i hope you lot suffer for the rest of your life", "you are evil lil scum bags", "their parents r scum", "evil ppl", "kick those bullies face in", "evil little demons!!!", "scum bags", "who ever was involved should be killed" and "we all know who these bitches are". I say that because these young girls are reading those comments. I know that because their family has told me. These young people are vulnerable themselves. All of us want bullying to stop and the people who made those comments, and there are many more comments like that on social networks out there for eternity until they are deleted by the people who posted them, wanted to see bullying stopped but what they did instead was become bullies themselves. God forbid one of the people who reads those comments would decide to end her own life prematurely and leave a note quoting those comments.

We need a comprehensive way to deal with bullying. It must be stamped out in all its guises and people must be very careful of what they say and the effects their remarks have on others.

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