Pádraic McCormack (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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Question 94: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the reason her Department has failed to support anti-bullying research being undertaken by a university, which could assist in tackling bullying behaviour in schools; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [7871/05]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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My Department considers the issue of bullying in schools as a priority for action and is fully supportive of any measures which address this issue. In this regard, my Department is actively engaged in a number of activities and its "Guidelines on Countering Bullying Behaviour in schools" provide a national framework within which individual school management authorities may meet their responsibilities for implementing effective school based policies to counter bullying.

These guidelines were drawn up following consultation with representatives of school management, teachers and parents. The purpose of the guidelines is to assist schools in devising school based measures to prevent and deal with instances of bullying behaviour and to increase awareness of the problem among school management authorities, staff, pupils and parents. They are sufficiently flexible to allow each school authority to adapt them to suit the particular needs of the school.

My Department funded the development of the Trinity College Dublin anti-bullying training programme for teachers-schools, including the piloting of the programme in Donegal Education Centre. The programme was based on the Norwegian experience of preventing and countering bullying behaviour. Following completion of the pilot, a meeting was held in spring 2003 to discuss the Donegal pilot, which was very general in nature and focused on future proposals in overall terms. Subsequently, a request was made by Dr. Mona O'Moore, Professor of Education, TCD, to fund a video on the programme. At that juncture, it was considered that this was not appropriate in terms of existing provision, other priorities, competing demands and available resources.

On her own initiative, Dr. O'Moore set up a programme based on the Donegal pilot to be delivered to all schools during school time. However, there was no contact between Trinity College and this Department regarding requests for funding or the implications of school closures to facilitate this programme. At a far later stage, a request was made to my Department about school closures and related financial support shortly before the programme was planned to commence. As my Department had no prior knowledge of the proposed programme, details were sought to examine the resource implications and the potential impact on schools through closures.

The request was made well into the current school year when timetables are firmly established in schools and it was, therefore, not possible to accommodate the request without a significant degree of disruption to teaching given the inadequate notice. Moreover, a paucity of information was provided on the resources required for the programme and, coupled with the lateness of the proposal, it was considered inappropriate to support the programme at that stage.