Tony Gregory (Dublin Central, Independent)
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Question 539: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the names of the national schools in the South Eastern Health Board area in which the school authorities or boards of management refused to introduce the Stay Safe programme in their schools, and to allow parent information meetings to inform parents and seek their permission for the programme during 1992 to 1995 when all national schools were offered the programme. [33872/05]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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The Stay Safe programme, which is also known as the child abuse prevention programme, CAPP, is a primary-school-based four-stage approach to the prevention of child abuse involving: children's safety education; teacher-training; parent education; and community awareness. The programme aims to reduce vulnerability to child abuse through the provision of in-service training for teachers, parent education and personal safety education for children at primary school level from senior infants to sixth class.

When the programme was introduced, an initial one-day in-service training seminar on it was made available to all primary schools. In the South East Health Board, SEHB, area — Counties Wexford, Waterford, Kilkenny and Carlow and south Tipperary — in-service was provided over the 1992-94 period, and I understand that all primary schools in the area availed themselves of that training. That compares with a national rate of 99.7% for schools participating in the available in-service.

By the end of 1995, 80% of schools in the SEHB area had held parents' information meetings on the programme, and 68% of schools reported to the CAPP that they had taught the Stay Safe programme. At that stage of the programme, the figure for the South East Health Board area was higher than the figure for the rest of the country, which showed that approximately 65% of schools were teaching the programme. It should be noted that during the 1992-94 period, the Stay Safe programme was new and, as such, encountered a degree of opposition in some parts of the country although, according to CAPP, not so much in the South East Health Board area. Regarding detailing specific schools in the context of introducing or teaching the programme, it is not the policy of my Department to name individual schools.

At present, approximately 82% of all primary schools in the country are teaching the Stay Safe programme to their pupils, but it should be recognised that the Stay Safe programme is not mandatory, and schools can decide whether to introduce the programme.

It is important to realise, however, that the central elements of the Stay Safe programme — primarily personal safety strategies for children — and, more importantly, the overall issue of child protection are now taught as integral parts of the subject of social, personal and health education, SPHE, which is part of the curriculum taught in every primary school. Specifically, the strand unit entitled Safety and Protection provides material for teachers to explore with children appropriate strategies in personal safety which incorporate elements of the Stay Safe programme. In addition, the implementation of my Department's child protection guidelines for all primary schools has given an additional impetus to the Stay Safe programme as well as the overall issue of child protection.