Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 16 December 2025
418. Deputy Gillian Toole asked the Minister for Education and Youth the analysis, review and risk assessments carried out on the í Cineálta primary and secondary-schools programme, to ensure compliance with the principles and protections in the Children First Act 2015 and the Children First: National Guidance for the Protection and Welfare of Children. [71340/25]
Amharc ar fhreagraCineáltas: Action Plan on Bullying was published on 1st December 2022. Cineáltas is my department’s whole-education approach to preventing and addressing bullying behaviour in schools.
Cineáltas is dedicated to the prevention and addressing of bullying behaviour including cyber bullying, racist bullying, gender identity bullying and sexual harassment, among other areas, in schools. It is centred on a child rights-based approach and provides a collective vision and clear roadmap for how the whole education community and society can work together to prevent and address bullying behaviour in our schools.
Cineáltas incorporates each of the nine components of UNESCO’s Whole Education Approach to prevent and address bullying behaviour. It is rooted in four key principles: prevention, support, oversight and community. Implementation of Cineáltas is well advanced. The first implementation report, which relates to 2023, was published on 02 July 2025. The second implementation report, which relates to 2024, is due to be published shortly.
One of the more significant actions under Cineáltas was to update the 2013 Anti-Bullying Procedures for Primary and Post-Primary Schools. This action has been completed with the publication, on 19 June 2024, of Bí Cineálta: Procedures to Prevent and Address Bullying Behaviour for Primary and Post-Primary Schools. These updated procedures were developed in collaboration with the education partners, including the National Parents Council, and are heavily informed by the views of children and young people, parents, school staff, Board of Management members and the wider education community.
The Bí Cineálta procedures are centred on a child rights-based approach and support a partnership approach where all members of the school community work together to prevent and address bullying behaviour. The procedures have been updated to take account of gender identity bullying, cyberbullying, racist bullying, sexist bullying, and sexual harassment. They support schools to develop clear strategies to prevent and address these bullying behaviours. The Bí Cineálta procedures are being implemented in all schools since the beginning of the 2025/2026 school year.
Implementation of the procedures was supported by a suite of professional learning resources and information sessions for school staff, Board of Management members and parents.
One of the key objectives of the Children First Act 2015 is to ensure that organisations that provide services to children (referred to as “providers of a relevant service” in the Act) keep children safe from harm while they are availing of those organisations’ services. In that regard, the Act places certain statutory obligations on every such provider. These include obligations to ensure, as far as practicable, that children are safe from harm while availing of its services, to undertake an assessment of any potential for harm to a child while availing of the organisation’s services (referred to as a “risk”) and to produce a Child Safeguarding Statement in accordance with the Act. The Act requires that the Child Safeguarding Statement has due regard to Children First National Guidance 2017, any other child protection guidelines issued by the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality or any guidelines concerning child safeguarding statements that are issued by Tusla under section 11 (4) of the Children First Act 2015.
All recognised schools fall within the definition of a “provider” of a relevant service under the Children First Act 2015 and therefore have specific statutory obligations under the Act. The protection and welfare of children is of paramount importance for every school, and the obligations and responsibilities which arise from child protection procedures are taken very seriously by our schools.
A school’s Child Safeguarding Statement shall be reviewed each calendar year and the department has provided a qualitative review document that shall be used when schools are conducting the annual review of the Child Safeguarding Statement. As part of its annual review of the Child Safeguarding Statement, the board of management must seek feedback from parents and school personnel in relation to the school’s compliance with the child safeguarding requirements of the procedures and retain a record of the consultation. As part of the annual review, parents in the school should have an opportunity to have a voice and participate in the process.
My department takes child protection matters very seriously and considers the protection and welfare of children to be a fundamental responsibility of all involved in the care and education of children.
My department has robust oversight measures in place which provide direction and guidance to school authorities to deal with child protection concerns. These are set out in the updated Child Protection Procedures for Schools 2025 which were published in May. The obligations and responsibilities have been taken very seriously by our schools since their implementation and there is a very strong culture of child protection across the school sector.
During the period in question, 3,103 school evaluations included checks on schools’ compliance with anti-bullying requirements. From January 2024 to August 2025, these checks related to the 2013 Anti-Bullying Procedures for Primary and Post-Primary Schools. Over this period, compliance levels were high, with 97.2% (n = 2,435) found to be compliant and 2.8% (n = 70) identified as non-compliant.
From the beginning of the current school year, in September 2025, the focus of these checks shifted to the implementation of the Bí Cineálta policy, which replaced the 2013 Procedures. Since September 2025, compliance has remained strong, with 96.3% (n = 576) of evaluations found to be compliant and 3.6% (n = 22) non-compliant.
These results indicate consistently high levels of compliance with safeguarding and anti-bullying obligations, both under the 2013 Anti-Bullying Procedures and, more recently, under the Bí Cineálta policy.
