Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank everyone who contributed to the debate, and I thank the Minister for highlighting some of measures the Department has implemented. Everybody brought up the issues of bullying, online bullying and cyberbullying. That was part of the report. This is a huge issue. I was bullied in secondary school myself, but fortunately at the time there were no online devices or social media. I was bullied within school, and very badly, by my fellow pupils but I was able to rise above it. I do not often talk about it but it affected me for many years. I therefore have knowledge of the way this affects a huge number of people. It knocks their confidence, not for months but for years and for the rest of their lives. It still knocks my confidence today. Last night's "Prime Time" programme resonated with me. I note the courage of Eden Heaslip's parents, Maggie and Raymond, and his siblings, Chloe and Finn, for having the courage to come out and speak about it, as well as their parish priest who told the story. We often say that something is okay and move on to the next thing. We saw what happened to Ashling Murphy last week and the array of support her family got. Eden Heaslip lost his life as well and I would have liked to see his family get the same amount of support Ashling Murphy's got. That is not to dispel any of that support because it was absolutely fantastic. This does not happen every day but bullying is happening every day in every school throughout the country and it has to be wiped out in some way. I know the Minister will take this issue seriously. She has brought a memorandum to Government specifically on this issue. I know she and her officials will do more but we need to keep this issue alive.

On other parts of the report, communication with schools is important. There has been a huge onus and responsibility on school principals over the past two years. I have spoken to the Minister about the larger primary schools where there is one principal and no deputy principals. Often there is a walking deputy principal just for the sake of talk. In contrast, a secondary school of 300 or 400 pupils could have a permanent principal and deputy principal, and some secondary schools have two or three deputy principals. In my local primary school in Enniscorthy there are almost 1,000 pupils. There is a principal and teaching vice principals. These larger primary schools need help and support from the Department and that is part of the support I would love to see put in place.

I am delighted that work will begin tomorrow on the plans for the 2022 leaving certificate. I commend the Minister on including the students in that debate last year and I know she will do so again this year. I might not have had a whole lot of sympathy for secondary school students, but after speaking to them in a couple of online meetings last year, I did a full 180 and had sympathy for them.

I commend the Minister and the Government on the courage they had in early January to reopen schools. It was absolutely the correct decision. A small number of naysayers blamed primary and secondary schools and third level colleges for the outbreaks and surge in Covid cases in November and December. There is no doubt a large number of cases came out of schools but it was not to the extent they claimed. We saw what happened with the hospitality sector, including pubs and so on, in December when there was a surge of cases right across society. I am glad primary schools have opened safely and that we have not had a surge of cases. Our hospitals have not been blocked up because of primary school children or teachers.

I put up a post on Facebook and Twitter about this and I got a huge amount of abuse, with people asking what I as an elected representative know about the safety of schools. I said that I was an elected representative who has an opinion and that those people should try it and put their name on a ballot paper. It is very easy for all these people to give abuse. Now that they have been proven wrong, they are very slow to come back and say they were wrong and the Minister, the Department of Education and the Government were right. I can only imagine the abuse the Minister got over recent weeks for coming out and saying primary schools would open. She made the right decision and I commend her and the Government on their courage in reopening schools in a very safe way. I was part of the Government when Covid first appeared. We did not always get it right but we were dealing with a disease that nobody knew about and we did our best, as the Minister and her Government are doing at this time.

I thank the Seanad, the Members and the committee members. I also compliment our clerk, Tara Kelly, who is in the Gallery. She has put outstanding work, beyond the call of duty, into compiling this report and all the other reports. I thank all our staff on the education committee. I thank members of the committee for their input and the Minister for her input and for appearing before the committee. I have no doubt we will see her again over the next while.