Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

My ideas are only in development and I do not want to give personal views. We are committing to a charter for parents and we want to see a stronger complaints procedure. We also want to see schools developing the capacity to deal with these problems. I note that, under section 28, guidelines were to be put in place and agreed with schools for dealing with complaints, but section 28 remained a dead letter and it never happened. Clearly there were problems with the Department getting what would have been a system for resolving this. The Deputy is correcting in stating that there needs to be some response.

Generally, an ombudsman provides a recommendation which does not have the force of law. Would such an ombudsman deal with this issue through a recommendation to a school? The Deputy's Bill may envisage an ombudsman going beyond this and not just dealing with recommendations but making binding decisions. These issues need to be teased out. To a degree I am speaking off the cuff because I do not know enough about this.

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