Mary White (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am pleased to have the opportunity to join in statements on this important issue. We are all agreed on deploring homophobic bullying, which I regard as despicable behaviour. The same applies to all bullying. We can all endorse the comments made by the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, when he declared that homophobic bullying is a moral outrage, a grave violation of human rights and a public health crisis. It is also a loss for the entire human family when promising lives are cut short.

It is heartening that Ireland is seen as being to the forefront of efforts to eliminate homophobic bullying from schools. It has also been one of the driving forces behind UNESCO's global good practice policy manual. The Fianna Fáil Party supports and welcomes the decision of the Minister for Education and Skills to address bullying through the forum on bullying and through the setting up of a working group on tackling bullying. Bullying should be viewed in the context of a whole school approach to promoting mental health. However, while all young people are at risk of being subjected to bullying, research shows that lesbian, gay and bisexual and transgender young people suffer far higher incidences of bullying behaviour and that teachers find it particularly hard to deal with homophobia. In view of this, a specific strategy is required to address homophobic bullying. According to GLEN, homophobic bullying has been documented as one of the most pervasive forms of bullying in Irish schools. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender young people experience bullying at a much higher rate than other young people. Irish research shows that homophobic bullying is a significant causal factor in self-harm, suicide and other severe mental health difficulties. Two in five Irish teachers find homophobic bullying more difficult to address than other forms of bullying. Supporting LGBT Lives, a study funded by the HSE National Office for Suicide Prevention, found that among lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, 50% experienced verbal homophobic bullying, 40% were verbally threatened by fellow students, 25% were physically threatened by their peers and 34% heard homophobic comments from teachers. The last statistic may go some way to indicating why two in five Irish teachers find homophobic bullying more difficult to address than other forms of bullying.

The Fianna Fáil Party believes that, in addition to general measures to deal with and prevent bullying, a specific strategy is required to address homophobic bullying. We must ensure that measures to prevent bullying and deal with incidents form part of an overall strategy to promote positive mental health among young people. The focus should be on promoting young people's well-being. It is essential the Department of Education and Skills updates its current bullying guidelines, which were introduced in 1993. They must be updated to address racist bullying, homophobic bullying and cyber bullying, including the use of text messages and mobile phones in schools. This should be an emphasis on the more subtle ways available in 2012, particularly Facebook. The guidelines must be significant be strengthened so that schools are required to implement an anti-bullying programme. The programme should involve the whole school community. It seems that schools must have policies in place to address bullying and list clear actions that must be taken following breaches of the policies, schools can do as much or as little as they see fit in tackling bullying. I agree with the position outlined by Professor Mona O'Moore of TCD in her presentation to the recent forum on bullying, that the definition of bullying in the 1993 guidelines must be updated as bullying is currently viewed as one or more individuals repeatedly targeting another. Cyber bullying can involve just one damaging incident, which is sufficient to be defined as bullying; it may not be a repeated attack. Schools need to be provided with proper training and support to implement the guidelines in order to take a more proactive approach to tackling bullying. We face a challenge and the fight against prejudice and intolerance is never easy. Those vices will always seek new outlets but with time and education we can overcome the challenge. Let us look at how attitudes have changed in so many recent years. For me and for the Fianna Fáil Party, it is a challenge we are willing to meet. I wish the Minister of State continued success with all her great work. I am one of her biggest fans.