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

On the issue of supporting teachers to provide this education, the Professional Development Service for Teachers, PDST, provides training to ensure schools and teachers can deliver it. In 2017 it provided contextualised school-based supports for 3,084 primary and 2,100 post-primary teachers. There is investment by the Department to make sure the teachers who deliver the programme have the skills to do so. That was just one year of the programme's activities. As I emphasised in my initial reply, there are no options in the delivery of the programme. Schools cannot opt out of certain parts of the sexuality education programme being delivered.

With regard to the use of outside organisations, there are very clear guidelines from the Department which are included in circulars to primary and post-primary schools. They state that where an outside speaker is engaged by a school, he or she should be engaged in the context of delivering a planned and comprehensive programme in the school, that he and or she should not be brought in to replace the school programme but to enhance it, that it is the responsibility of the school to ensure outside speakers are aware of the school policy and that the full content of the curriculum is delivered. It is not envisaged that outside providers will deliver the core curriculum in this area, although they can be a supplement to it.

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