Pauline O'Reilly (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I wish everyone, including the Deputy Leader, a happy new year.

Several things have happened in the past few weeks and months. It is so difficult to encapsulate it all in three minutes. I know that we will have lots of opportunities. I thank the Leader and Deputy Leader for making those opportunities available to discuss the death of Ashling Murphy in greater detail than I can go into now. There is an awful lot to be said about the society that we live in. We must really give that the time and invite in the appropriate Minister. I know the Deputy Leader is doing that and I am grateful for that.

I would also like to bring up identity-based bullying in our schools. Consent is something that we speak about an awful lot and the proper kind of educational reforms that are required around consent. Watching the really difficult video by the parents of Eden Heaslip on the extent of the bullying he underwent, leading to him eventually deciding that suicide was the only option for him, really brought home the issues that children across our society are facing.

I was on the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Key Issues affecting the Traveller Community, as was Senator Moynihan. It was chaired by Senator Flynn. It really brought home to me the lives that children are leading in their homes. There is an awful lot we need to do on accommodation. When it comes to the kind of experiences they have in their school life, however, there is almost no place to go that is comfortable and where people are shown respect. The councils are not showing respect when it comes to proper accommodation. In our schools, 27% of Traveller parents say that their children experience identity-based bullying.

I note the Yellow Flag programme. It has real difficulty in getting funding. It relies on funding from local authorities, provided on a case-by-case basis depending on whether the local authority has funds in the pot and whether it is willing to support it. Most of the education is in schools where there are a lot of people coming from diverse backgrounds. We need to see it being rolled out across the board in all schools if we are really to tackle the issues of identity-based violence and bullying. Some 150 schools are turned away each year from this programme because the funding is not there. I would love if we could write to the Minister for Education suggesting that this programme is funded and supported on a national level. That is what is required. We know all of the problems. We are going about finding the solutions. This is one part of that.