Page 1265 - Week 05 - Thursday, 31 May 2007
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really advances this too much further—that he should come in and correct the record. The question itself was really quite simple, as indeed was the answer. As a supplementary question I asked the minister:
Minister, is it the case that some schools do not report the incident to the police and that some school authorities have actually discouraged parents from reporting to the police? You mentioned the protocols. Will you table those protocols by close of business today?
Mr Barr, in response to that, said:
I am not aware of any. No incidents have been brought to my attention whereby there has been a flagrant breach of any of the protocols that are in place.
It may well be that in the heat of question time something may well have slipped his attention and that is why, after going back and checking, the minister should come into this place and correct the record.
I had some involvement in this matter, because Mrs Dunne was away and I was acting in the portfolio. Indeed, the father of the young man concerned who was the victim here I have known since he was about eight because a family friend used to go to school with his older brother. But there was a letter sent to Mr Peebles from Tio Faulkner, Mrs Dunne’s adviser, which stated, and I will not mention anyone’s name or the school, that the mother:
was called to pick her son up after the assault and was told not to involve the police as the school would handle it.
I have also got some correspondence here, which was sent to the department, I understand, on 3 April 2007 by email with a letter attachment at 10.19 am. In that letter from the mother and father they said they went to the school, spoke to people there and:
We were told they would get the boys together for mediation when … recovered and … was back at school. In the same call we were advised not to get the police involved, as the school would handle it themselves.
That is quite clear and no-one is really disputing those facts. No-one expects the minister necessarily to know absolutely everything in his brief. But it is quite clear that his office and the department were well aware of this situation and it is quite clear that the minister, by his answer, did not give a correct answer and accordingly, on reviewing the situation, having had it brought to his attention by Mrs Dunne quite properly, should at the first available opportunity have come in here and corrected the record. That is simply what it is all about.
The incident itself is largely irrelevant. It is the principle of ministerial responsibility, it is the principle of how we operate in this place, it is the principle of a minister’s duty to the Assembly that dictates that the minister should come in here at the earliest opportunity and say, “Further to my answer yesterday, it was not quite right,” and correct the record accordingly. That is a duty that ministers have and it is set out in the code of conduct of ministers, a February 2004 document. It is a principle enshrined in very similar terms by Erskine May in Parliamentary Practice.
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