Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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58. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the reasons circular 045/2013 has not been placed on a statutory footing. [42470/13]

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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Under the Education (Welfare) Act 2000, all schools must have a code of behaviour which has been drawn up in accordance with guidelines issued by the National Education Welfare Board, NEWB. These NEWB guidelines specifically require all schools to have an anti-bullying policy within the framework of their overall code of behaviour. The recently published anti-bullying procedures are underpinned by this legal framework and I do not believe further legislation is necessary.

Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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Under the previous system, there was a very ad hoc approach to how schools were implementing those guidelines. Some schools had very good anti-bullying policies in place while others were not so good. The new circular sets out procedures to give direction and guidance to school authorities and personnel in preventing and tackling school-based bullying behaviour. I also note that we looked at the definition. In respect of the definition and how schools will implement the circular, I think the Minister has allocated €40,000 for training purposes for boards of management. When one breaks that down in terms of the number of schools and boards of management, we are looking at 72 courses. Is the Minister satisfied this will be enough to implement the circular? One of the things he asked for was for parents to become more involved in the development of the policy. Parents who sit on boards of management may not have expertise in developing that type of policy so they need that type of training. After the allocation of the figure of €40,000, are we looking at extending it and putting in place more training programmes? Will it be a continuous assessment with regard to how the policy is being developed and the review mechanisms put in place?

I looked at the templates, which are very good, but one of the options in a template allows schools to leave out some of the template produced by the Minister. I do not know if this is the right way to go because much of the information in the existing template is the type of information that needs to be recorded, and leaving out sections of the template should not be an option.

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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The overall budgetary allocation, which is quite modest, is €500,000 for the implementation of the strategy. Deputy O'Brien is correct in saying that €70,000 was identified for a specific training programme for parents, to be administered by the National Parents Council. We will see how that unfolds. The previous set of guidelines were signed off on in 1993. These have been the product of a lot of good engagement and I welcome Deputy O'Brien's support, as well as the support of Fianna Fáil, over recent months in respect of that.

My view is that we should see how this is working and whether parents are being properly empowered vis-à-vis schools to be able to react in a coherent way if there are incidences of bullying in whatever shape or form. More resources can be made available. Before we start moving to a statutory basis, which implies that there will be penalties, obligations and legal requirements of some description, I would prefer to have them operate on a non-statutory basis until we learn from them. If such a basis is required in the future, I am open to considering, it but I would need to be persuaded by the evidence and we do not have that yet.

Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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What would be the consequences for schools which do not implement the circular, be it because they do not have the expertise to develop a comprehensive anti-bullying policy or they do not have the resources to meet the targets in terms of the end of the academic year? What is the follow-up in terms of working with those schools which may not have that expertise?

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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If a school does not implement the strategy and guidelines and this decision is wilful, in that the school either does not agree with the strategy and guidelines or is not going to implement them, rather than the result of the school having difficulties finding the resources, that must provoke some kind of consequence. If it is because the school or board of management need assistance or guidance, we are open to looking at that, but we will not go back to the past.

We will not tolerate bullying, whether cyberbullying, identity bullying or any other kind of bullying. We have gone beyond that and that is the clear reaction from the public. I do not anticipate that any school will not want to implement the guidelines, but we have 4,000 schools and if, for whatever reason, we get evidence that a school is willfully disengaging, we cannot ignore it.