Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The nub of the issue is the default position. The Minister has made it clear that she favours the default position being that it be held in public without making any serious case for it except what she calls transparency. She needs seriously to consider the possible implications for people against whom there are serious allegations that could permanently affect their lives, careers and reputations and where there is the potential for that to happen frequently without those allegations necessarily being justified or having foundation. Even in cases where they might have justification and foundation and where someone needed to be de-registered or disciplined, what is the public benefit in humiliating them? I do not see the case for it.

If anyone wants to make the case for it to be held in public and there is an actual public interest in doing so, there should be provision for that case to be made, but other than that we need to be cognisant that we are dealing with people's lives and reputations where the vast majority of teachers are good people doing their best. I accept that in some cases they might not being doing the best job, but even then it is not about publicly humiliating them and feeding the potential tabloid frenzy that could surround these things.

The Minister should row back on this. She should also consider the witnesses, including pupils or anyone else who might be called. Is it really a good idea to hold these things in public?

The Minister has said people could be represented. We are not talking about people such as Mr. Denis O'Brien. We are talking about people who are average earners and are already struggling to pay their bills. They cannot do what Mr. Denis O'Brien can do and get high-powered barristers to defend their so-called privacy when we are dealing with hundreds of millions of euro of public money. These are just teachers.

On the distinction I made between teachers and nurses, I do not think it is appropriate that nurses, including public health nurses, should have a default position that they would be brought before public disciplinary hearings. It is wrong for them. It is slightly different for public health nurses, but teachers are very identifiable in the community because of the nature of what they do. A public health nurse might fit into that category, but the nurse in the hospital is not quite as identifiable as the teacher in the school who is known by hundreds or possibly thousands of people.

There is a very significant potential for a person's reputation to be besmirched when it may not be justified and for it to have an effect on him or her, and the Minister should reconsider.

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