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Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 14 Nov 1996

Vol. 471 No. 6

Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. Priority Questions. - Bullying in Schools.

Micheál Martin

Question:

1 Mr. Martin asked the Minister for Education if she intends to introduce a national policy on bullying which would deal comprehensively with all the issues involved and which would provide for a nationwide counselling service for all schools throughout the country. [21423/96]

Helen Keogh

Question:

3 Ms Keogh asked the Minister for Education the steps, if any, her Department has taken to combat the problem of bullying in our schools. [21193/96]

I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 and 3 together.

Bullying in schools is an issue of particular concern to me. It is a most complex and difficult problem and this is recognised in the depth and detail of our national policy which was prepared by an expert working group and put in place in 1993 following consultation with the partners in Education. The policy includes guidelines which were issued to all schools and are available to the public from my Department.

The guidelines on countering bullying behaviour and the policy which they underpin have attracted much favourable comment. Indeed Ireland was to the fore in producing national guidelines of this type and they have been of real assistance to schools in dealing with this issue.

We must constantly review our approach and learn from the practical experience of those closest to the problem. I have now decided to review the present guidelines and as a first step I have asked the partners in education to submit their observations to me. The nationwide study of Bullying in first and second level schools conducted by Trinity College, which was considered at the recent International Conference on Bullying in Trinity College, will also make a significant contribution to the review. The review will be conducted in consultation with the Partners during the current school year.

The Deputies will be aware that I have increased significantly the availability of guidance counselling in schools. I regard this additional resource as being central to the strategy of countering bullying.

According to the Trinity College survey one in 20 primary school children and one in 50 post-primary school children are bullied once a week. One of the major problems is the reluctance of children, particularly as they grow older, to tell teachers or parents about the bullying. Given the foregoing and the feelings of inadequacy such children must have, surely there is an urgent need to rapidly expand the educational psychological service to help children who need counselling? Those who bully are also victims as a consequence of emotional turmoil and so forth. We have a poor psychological service; 80 per cent of primary school children have no access to a psychologist. Is there not an urgent need for the expansion of the psychology service to help these children who are suffering every week?

The Deputy is right to draw our attention to the scale of the problem that has been identified. It is also important to put it in perspective. We do not know if the scale is increasing or decreasing, although the problem is more identifiable. I share the Deputy's concern that younger children appear to be more prepared to tell adults and those who are responsible for ensuring they have a happy school environment about instances of bullying. As children grow older peer pressure seems to strengthen.

I wish to record my appreciation of the great work being done under Dr. Mona O'Moore in Trinity College. The information yielded by her study is available to all who are intent on helping the community deal with the problem which extends far beyond the school. The guidelines I have put in place are geared towards the prevention of the development of bullying in schools, not just for the sake of children who are bullied but also for the children who bully and who are also victims in the society in which they are reared.

The guidelines have been in place for three years. I intend to consult the partners in education — teachers, parents and those responsible for running the schools — to ask them to consider the guidelines and how they have operated and to increase the scale of help available to schools, whether it is through the schools psychological service or guidance counsellors. At the end of this school year, when we complete the review of the guidelines, there might be a suggestion to upgrade them. Certainly, we are starting from a much better informed source than when I came into office. Ireland is the only European country with national guidelines. They were put in place not from on high but following consultation with all the partners involved in ensuring that a child can benefit from education within the school system.

Is the Minister aware that, according to the President of the ASTI, not only is there a horrendous problem of bullying in schools but what we have learned about it is only the tip of the iceberg? Is the Minister aware of the extent of bullying in our schools and will she agree that the lack of psychological services in schools is one of the reasons we are unable to deal with the problem? Does she agree with the findings of the review and will she expand the school psychological service to the extent needed?

Is the Minister aware of cases that have been documented in which bullying has led to serious consequences? The parents of one child who suffered and subsequently died from anorexia nervosa are convinced that the process was started by bullying in school. They believe it led to low self esteem in the child. Does the Minister not agree that this problem must be dealt with urgently and not pushed back for review once again?

I do not underestimate the problem. I assembled an expert group and, following consultation with the partners in education, introduced the only national guidelines on bullying. That was done three years ago. We must be careful with the facts and figures. We must remember we have no previous figures on which to base the interesting material that is now available and which must inform new rules within the Department on tackling bullying.

It is a complex matter and I will not comment on individual cases. Responsibility for the school environment is one I share with the partners in Government. I do not agree that consulting the partners in Government about reviewing guidelines in place for three years is shoving the problem anywhere. Three years is a relatively short time. More information is available to us and the complexity of services in schools has increased. I should mention the stay safe programme which gives younger children the skills to communicate with adults where they feel they are not in a safe environment, the teacher counselling posts developed as a pilot scheme in the Tallaght area and the remedial services and extra guidance counsellors. I am satisfied that more resources are available now. So long as one child is bullied and those responsible for that environment have not declared bully-free zones for children the work of the Department of Education must continue on behalf of those children.

The Minister has avoided answering the core part of both questions. Given that 80 per cent — the figure is available from IMPACT — of primary school children have no access whatsoever to a psychological service and that children are reluctant to speak with teachers and parents, will the Minister accept the need for more staff in the school psychological service? Will she accept that we need a nationwide school counselling service? People with low incomes have to find the money for private appointments with psychologists. I have had experience of this. It is only through such counselling sessions that children reveal the entire story and have an opportunity to retrieve the situation for themselves and the school. The Minister should pay more attention to what is being said here. It is not a flippant matter. I urge the Minister to appoint more psychologists to our schools and provide a nationwide counselling service for the children who are being bullied. Those children cannot wait for a review of guidelines. They need help now and we should provide it, given the scale of the problem.

It is a complex area and one that requires support in the school psychological service. I do not accept we have allowed the situation to develop to a stage where children are desperately in need of a psychological service.

It has got to that stage.

Guidelines are in place following consultation with the partners. The number of schools which has adopted the guidelines is encouraging. There is an onus on all of us to ensure a bully-free environment. Resources have been made available to the psychological service, the teaching counsellors and the stay safe programme. Guidelines are in place but the resource should not be finite. So long as difficulties remain for children there is a responsibility on all of us. More information is now available and a better spotlight is put on the needs of children. There is no disagreement on the need for more support services. The prevention of bullying in schools should be a top priority in the management of the school community.

The Minister has rightly pointed to the fact that this is a complex issue. What proces is in place to ensure the guidelines are implemented? What monitoring process is in place to follow up on their implementation? Will she agree that to ensure those guidelines are implemented schools need the back-up of a school psychological service so that they can identify and deal with the problem? Will the Minister agree it is not good enough to have psychological service pilot schemes, that we need a nationwide service to counteract this problem?

It is an appalling situation.

The guidelines were issued as national policy to all schools. Part of the review is to monitor the effectiveness of the guidelines in different communities. The guidelines allow for flexibility by each school in the prevention of bullying. Parents, teachers and managers are involved. I expect at the end of this school year when we have had a review of the guidelines through the primary and second level school systems that parts of those guidelines could be adopted. More research will be available to us for the following school year. All the partners must be involved in building a happy environment for school children so that they can benefit from the educational system.

Is the Minister saying no monitoring process was in place and that there was no way of ensuring the guidelines were being implemented in the schools until now?

The guidelines were issued to all schools three years ago. The impact of those guidelines is to be examined by the Department. That is a relatively short time in which to review them. The working party drawing up the national guidelines involved all the interests of the school communities at the different levels so that each of the national organisations involved in the partnership for education had an input into the guidelines. Those guidelines were issued nationally. Three years later we have asked those same partners and organisations, those closest to the school communities, to come back to the Department of Education to review them.

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