Declan Breathnach (Louth, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

While listening to the other speakers, I could not help but note that the majority of those who spoke are teachers, including the Minister, with the exception of Deputies Tóibín and Funchion. That said, I could not help but think that if Members stood in this house 50 years ago and mentioned the word "sex" or "sexuality", they would either have been told to resume their seat or leave the Chamber.

I do not want to lighten this issue and I think it is important to set that context. For too long, it was taboo. If we look at past generations, certainly in my era, with the exception of the case of very open-minded parents, children, whether boys or girls, were provided with books to read up about it. Indeed, the first introduction to the word for most young people was to take out a dictionary and look up the word, and giggle and laugh at it.

Fortunately, however, as a primary teacher, I saw the introduction in 1999 of mandatory provision of age-appropriate training to all primary school children. It is important to say the programme of relationships and sexuality education and the Stay Safe programme, to which Deputy Funchion referred, were excellent in their time but need to be upgraded and modified to ensure we bring the issue into the modern world. My first time speaking to a Minister in this House was when I told the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Zappone, that unless we got to grips with the issue of learning for life and life skills, at both primary and secondary school, and treating them as being as important as mathematics, English, languages or science, we would be on a slippery slope.

It is important to set this discussion in its context. The European Expert Group on Sexuality Education positions relationships and sexuality education in a rights-based framework. As Members of the United Nations, we are obliged to comply with human rights, including the right to sexuality and reproductive education. More important to me, however, is Article 42.1 of Bunreacht na hÉireann, which has been mentioned by others. It recognises parents as the primary educators of their children. In that context parents are the educators but it falls to teachers to help to back that up.

It is important to refer not only to the committee's excellent report - I should have complimented the Committee on Education and Skills and its Chairman, Deputy O'Loughlin - but also to the Library & Research Service's production on this matter. It is important to highlight a number of issues raised in the latter, particularly the following:

- A national survey of primary and post-primary teachers, parents and schools found overwhelming support for school-based sexuality education, with teachers reporting a high level of satisfaction with the training they had received [but that is not to say they do not need more training];

- Mayock, Kitching and Morgan (2010) found that 66.6% of schools surveyed reported that RSE implementation levels had improved since its introduction in 1997 but the study identified significant variance in the quality of RSE delivery. The [Department of Education and Skills] Inspectorate (2013) also found significant variation in the quality of RSE provision;

- Mayock, Kitching and Morgan argued that the absence of explicit directives and teaching resources for specific and often sensitive topics means in practice that students do not have equal opportunities for learning, discussion and debate on some aspects of sexuality;

- A survey conducted among 13 to 24 year old LGBT+ young people in 2017 found that 39% complained of the absence of inclusive sex education in schools;

- Almost all of schools are providing a programme of RSE for senior cycle students [but] significant variation in the quality of provision has been identified: RSE was found to be good or very good in 70% of schools evaluated but weaknesses outweighed strengths in 27% of schools;

- In almost half of the schools evaluated by the Inspectorate (2013), practices and procedures that supported subject planning for RSE tended not to be as effective as planning for SPHE;

- There is a perceived failure of RSE to deal with a range of sensitive topics, while the programme's focus on sexuality as a subject precludes an understanding [that] sex [can be] pleasurable and desirable.

As I said, we need to upgrade the RSE curriculum. It is no longer fit for purpose and that is not a criticism of past programmes. It is a question of what many here have referred to, namely, the changing, complex society in which we find ourselves. The curriculum is in need of urgent overhaul. The Education Act should be amended in order that ethos cannot be a barrier to objective and factual relationships and sexuality education.

Finally, I commend the Committee on Education and Skills and ask the Minister to ensure that the necessary training and upgrading of the curriculum content give every opportunity to the children of this nation to have that learning for life. I often think, when I consider some of the psychological and emotional issues that pervade our society, that the taboos that were referred to at the outset of the debate could be responsible for a lot of those problems which people have suffered from in the past.

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