Mary Moran (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House and express my sincere sympathy and that of my colleagues to the families of those who have tragically died by suicide in recent times. I also pay tribute to Mr. Jonathan Pugsley, who was at the briefing this afternoon. It is a tribute and testament to the man and it is invaluable help to listen to the story. It gives us a further insight and helps to avoid future such situations.

It is a very unselfish act by the parents who come forward.

I pay tribute to my Fine Gael colleagues for bringing the motion to the House. Recently, the House debated homophobic bullying. The coverage in the media of the tragic deaths of two teenagers and the outcry following that, the report just published by the Ombudsman for Children on bullying in schools, the statement by the Minister for Justice and Equality on cyberbullying last week, the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs's meeting with Facebook management to discuss online safeguards for children, and the series on RTE television programme, "Bullyproof", which concluded last night have all focused our minds on the far-reaching and serious repercussions of all forms of bullying.

I commend the Minister for the work done to date in tackling the issue of bullying in schools with the establishment of the anti-bullying forum. I await with great interest the action plan which I hope will be published before Christmas.

As a former teacher I know that schools have been engaged for a number of years in establishing school policies to deal with bullying, and all schools are obliged to include it in their school planning. The Department of Education and Skills inspectorate evaluates, advises and gives support on anti-bullying measures in inspections of SPHE, CSPE and RSE programmes in schools. Primary schools have to implement the Stay Safe programme, a personal safety skills programme for primary children that aims to reduce vulnerability to child abuse and bullying through the provision of personal safety education. We certainly need schools to evaluate the efficacy of their current anti-bullying programmes and to develop a whole-school approach to the issue.

The Ombudsman for Children's report states that 10,000 children every day struggle to go to school because of bullying. That is a pretty staggering figure and it does not even take into account the unreported cases or those children who are suffering in silence. In my teaching career I found it particularly difficult to deal with these children. I remember one particular student who became increasingly withdrawn over the course of a year. I could see weight coming off and would try to ask her if she was okay. One can sometimes sense that a child in such a situation does not want to be singled out and approached. One has to be very careful in how one deals with such a situation. One day I had the group for last class and when the girl was heading out at a quarter to four, I asked her if she was okay. A teacher has to give a child the time when he or she wants to come forward. The following day I found she had left a long and heartbreaking letter on my desk. Cyberbullying was not spoken of at that time. As Senator Power said, girls can be particularly cruel. This girl had not been physically hurt or even verbally abused. She had suffered isolation and a feeling of not belonging.

Some will say most bullying takes place outside school, but a great deal goes on inside schools.