Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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100. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the reason section 28 of the Education Act 1998 has never been fully enacted. [19990/16]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The Programme for a Partnership Government provides that the Government will introduce a stronger complaints procedure and charter for parents, and commence the Fitness to Teach provisions of the Teaching Council Act.

The Programme also provides that the role and the power of an Ombudsman for Education, to whom a parent could complain and appeal on foot of a decision by a board of management, will be examined by the relevant Oireachtas committee to ensure its consistency with the need to ensure better local decision making and accountability to parents.

Both of these commitments are part of a continuum because having a dedicated ombudsman with a power to deal with parental complaints would be a residual, but potentially important function where local resolution has failed.

I think that the relevant Oireachtas Committee will need to consider both programme commitments together. Work already under way in my Department envisages legislative change to Section 28 of the Education Act 1998, and creating an ombudsman with powers to externally review school actions would require new legislation that could be progressed in tandem.