Gerard Murphy (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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Question 144: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the figure for the number of schools offering the Stay Safe programme; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [5556/06]

Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)
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Question 160: To ask the Minister for Education and Science if the Stay Safe programme will be made compulsory in schools; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [5728/06]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 144 and 160 together.

The issue of child protection and ensuring that all children in every primary school are aware of child protection issues are high priority areas for my Department. The Stay Safe programme is a personal safety programme for children. It is designed to give children the knowledge and necessary skills to help them deal with potentially abusive or threatening situations. However, it is also recognised that the programme must cover those individuals closely involved with children on a daily basis: parents, guardians and teachers. To this end, professional in-service courses for teachers and parent awareness seminars have been put in place at individual school level. This is in addition to the teaching of a personal safety skills programme to pupils.

The training of teachers, parents and boards of management in the Stay Safe programme and the development of guidelines and procedures for a school policy on child protection is provided by a network of 31 regionally-based teachers who are available to the programme on a part-time basis. This support supplements the assistance provided by the Department of Health and Children which maintains an administrative office for the Stay Safe programme. An initial one-day in-service training seminar on the Stay Safe Programme has been provided for all primary schools. Since the programme was introduced, 99.7% of primary schools have participated in this training.

In respect of schools, the Department does not have an accurate survey of each school in the country which is implementing the Stay Safe programme specifically. It should be noted, however, that while the Stay Safe programme is not mandatory, the teaching of a personal safety programme to ensure child protection is now an integral element of the curricular subject of social, personal and health education, SPHE, and is mandatory in all primary schools. This ensures that child protection issues remain central to teaching and learning in our schools.

However, in order to ensure that the most accurate up-to-date information about the implementation of the 'Stay Safe' Programme in all primary schools in the State, I have instructed officials in my Department to liaise with the relevant personnel charged with the delivery of the Stay Safe programme to examine whether an up-to-date survey of schools is required. The introduction of SPHE as a subject on the revised primary school curriculum combined with the implementation of the national child protection guidelines, "Children First", gave an additional impetus to the Stay Safe programme.

It is a priority of my Department to ensure that a high level of awareness and necessary skills to address child protection issues, which includes the implementation of the Stay Safe programme, are maintained in all schools. For this reason, my Department will continue to support the promotion of child protection within the context of the SPHE curriculum.