Jim D'Arcy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the pupils and teachers of St. Josef school in Rheinbach-Bonn, Germany, who are visiting Ireland. I hope their stay will be enjoyable.

As Senator Rónán Mullen said, the NCSE yesterday released its report recommending that teachers receive further training in order to provide behavioural support for students. The report recommended that each school should appoint one teacher to have special responsibility for behaviour management in the school. I welcome the report but I have been contacted by teachers in Dundalk and Louth. The learning support and resource teachers in particular are not in favour of responsibility for behaviour in schools falling to one teacher. They favour a whole-school approach and that the appointment of this teacher should occur solely in conjunction with whole-school training in appropriate management of challenging behaviour. In my view this should include ancillary staff and special needs assistants.

I read recently about children's behaviour and refer to a view that children today are unruly and badly behaved, resentful of authority and aggressive at times in their behaviour. That was written in 400 BC by a man called Plato. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.