Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael)
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Question 267: To ask the Minister for Education and Science when corporal punishment was abolished; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [9236/07]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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Until 1982 Rule 130 of the Rules for National Schools permitted and governed the application of corporal punishment at primary level. Department Circulars 9/82 and 5/82 terminated the practice of corporal punishment in schools.

Section 201 of the Children Act 2001 prohibits corporal punishment in the Children Detention Schools. There is also an offence of cruelty under section 246 of the Children Act 2001 "for any person who has the custody, charge or care of a child to wilfully assault, ill-treat, neglect, abandon or expose the child or to cause or procure or allow the child to be assaulted, ill-treated, neglected, abandoned or exposed, in a manner likely to cause unnecessary suffering or injury to the child's health or seriously to affect his or her wellbeing".

The foregoing relates to recognised schools within the education system. However, it may be noted that the Department of Health and Children also prohibit the use of corporal punishment in the "special care units" and other residential centres to which the provisions of the Child Care (Special Care) Regulations 2004 (S.I. No. 550 of 2004) apply. Similarly, the Child Care (Pre-School Services) Regulations 1996 (S.I. No. 398 of 2006) also prohibit the use of corporal punishment against pre-school children.

On a more general level, the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act 1997 is generally taken to have prohibited corporal punishment, and section 12(2) of the Criminal Law Act 1997 prohibited the infliction of corporal punishment in prisons but the Deputy may wish to address these matters to the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform.