Joint Committee on Education, Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science debate – Tuesday, 11 May 2021

I thank the Chair for the opportunity to address the committee on the impact that school bullying has on mental health.

As many members will know, the alliance unites more than 120 organisations working together to make Ireland one of the best places in the world to be a child. However, bullying has been identified as one of the worst things about being a child in Ireland. Although children and young people here are less likely to experience it than some of their peers in other countries, almost 8% of those aged between 11 and 15 still encounter chronic bullying.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child recognises the right of all children to be protected from abuse and neglect, and that includes psychological and physical bullying. Ireland’s approach to tackling bullying has been multifaceted, addressing different national policies and legislative provisions across the education sector, child protection policies and youth strategies.

The 2013 national action plan on bullying in schools contains 12 actions that focus on supports for schools, teacher training and research, awareness raising, and aims to ensure that all forms of bullying are addressed. We welcome the comprehensive definition of bullying in the related anti-bullying procedures for primary and post-primary schools. That also includes cyberbullying and identity-based bullying, such as racism and homophobia. However, we feel schools are missing an important opportunity to gather data and monitor incidents of identity-based bullying. While these procedures acknowledge the need for a programme of supports to be put in place, in their absence, responsibility for dealing with mental health issues often falls on teachers, who are rarely appropriately skilled to deal with serious psychological issues. There is a clear need to identify the types of resources required for an adequate in-school model of mental health support for those who have experienced bullying or, where necessary, to identify appropriate out-of-school supports, where staff can refer victims of bullying.

Children make up a third of global online users. While the Internet brings unparalleled opportunity for children to learn, connect and socialise, it also brings unparalleled risk. During the Covid-19 lockdown, 28% of children and young people reported that they had been a victim of cyberbullying, with younger children more likely to have been a victim. The current opportunity to establish an online safety commissioner could help to ensure that children are safer online, and could ensure that children, young people, parents and teachers are educated on how to address cyberbullying and online harassment.

While any child may be subject to bullying, certain groups of children and young people may be more susceptible or may be targeted because of their own, or their parents’, identity or status. However, there is a lack of data on the impact of bullying on certain cohorts of children, and this includes children in alternative care, children who are members of an ethnic minority, and children impacted by parental imprisonment, to name a few.

In our submission to the committee, we highlighted data on particular groups more at risk of bullying. For example, the marginalisation of members of the Traveller and Roma culture within the Irish education system adversely affects young people’s sense of belonging and place. Traveller children are more likely to have higher rates of mental health issues than the general population. For Roma children, insufficient English language and literacy support can compound experiences of bullying and marginalisation at school. We are calling on the Government, therefore, to develop and publish a national Traveller and Roma educational strategy as a matter of priority.

Finally, while the Department of Education supports initiatives to address homophobic and transphobic bullying in schools, BelonGTo has highlighted that LGBTI+ bullying is rife throughout second level schools in Ireland. This can have a devastating impact on teenagers’ mental health, increasing the likelihood of reporting stress, depression, anxiety, self harm and attempted suicide. Although it was promised in the last programme for Government, but was never done, the Department of Education should conduct a review of the national action plan on bullying and consider other forms of bullying and harassment in relation to gender, race, religion, or grounds, and put in place appropriate actions to tackle these. I thank members for their attention.