The problem of bullying at school and in the workplace appears to be much more widespread than most of us believed, writes Garret FitzGerald
And it is disturbing that a recent report on workplace bullying, made by the ESRI to the Department of Enterprise and Employment, records that bullying of women is almost twice as common as that of men, and that in the education and health and social work sectors more serious bullying is reported by between 20 per cent and 25 per cent of respondents - a much higher ratio than in other sectors.
However, having last Saturday had the good fortune to hear Prof Mona O'Moore, of the school of education in TCD, discussing school bullying with parents of vocational and community school children, I want to turn to this aspect of bullying. It is, after all, where the problem begins.
It must be said that bullying among schoolchildren in Ireland is at a lower level than in most other developed countries. Five years ago a study co-ordinated from Edinburgh University found that Ireland was at the lower end of the European bullying scale: 25.9 per cent of Irish students reporting bullying as against 30 to 40 per cent in Germany, France, Portugal, Austria, and the French-speaking part of Belgium. In England it was 26 per cent.
Bullying as defined includes teasing, taunting, threatening, hitting, exclusion and extortion.
At school more boys than girls report having been bullied, and when children were asked whether they had bullied other children, twice as many boys as girls admitted to having done so.
Not surprisingly, those who admitted having bullied others are often less interested in school and are more likely to smoke or drink excessively - and some of them are themselves victims of bullying. They also tend to have low self-esteem, which they try to boost by seeking to dominate others.
It also seems that big schools may have more problems of this kind: they may be more prone to a "gang" mentality. They are also more likely to see attempted bullying of teachers by students.
The dangers of bullying are now more fully recognised, and is not a problem that can be allowed to sort itself out as students mature. There have been far too many serious casualties of bullying for the problem to be left to resolve itself.
Nine years ago a serious attempt was made in Co Donegal to tackle the problem, and "before and after" research by Prof O'Moore showed that this effort had a significant impact on cases of frequent bullying.
However it had no effect on pupils' willingness to tell either teachers or parents about instances of bullying.
Resistance to "telling" seems to be even greater in Ireland than elsewhere, and is very difficult to challenge. It is significant that although qualitative research showed that pupils understood that they should report bullying, they did not believe it was safe to do so. An effective student council might be able to help with this problem.
Nevertheless, the short-run results in Donegal were enough to convince the Norwegian government to extend its own similar but untested scheme on a national basis.
However, much more might have been achieved here if the Department of Education had been prepared to sanction even a half day's in-service training and finance replacement teaching for those who were to be the trainers.
In the absence of such provision, schools and trainers are believed to have lost heart, and some of the potential benefits of this initiative were dissipated. This emphasises the need for a greater commitment to this problem at official level.
A new and particularly insidious form of bullying is cyber-bullying - where a child organises a website directed at humiliating or threatening a classmate, often anonymously. In such a case the victim may feel particularly powerless to cope.
Where parents/school become aware of this or more overt bullying, a solution can sometimes be for the victim to change school. However, this is not always easy.
It is very encouraging to find that in Co Kildare there is an inter-school consultative system that can facilitate this process. Other areas please copy!
In extreme cases bullying can lead to suicide. And even where matters do not reach that point, permanent damage can be done to those affected by it.
Research in Dublin has suggested that attempted suicide is seven times more common in the case of victims of bullying than in the case of non-victims. Depressive disorders are also 2½ times more common.
It is important for teachers to realise that those doing the bullying will themselves sometimes be at risk of low self-esteem and depression, even with thoughts of suicide more severe than those they may induce in their victims.
For that reason, the handling of those who bully must also be sensitive. Children often understand this, which sometimes accounts for reluctance on their part to "tell" about such behaviour. It has been established that children are more inclined to "tell" if they know that bullies will not be treated too harshly.
An associated problem may be the reaction of the parents of a child found to have been bullying. In some cases the source of the bullying could be unhappiness due to problems in the home - and in such cases parents may be defensive and even in denial.
In other cases the source of the problem may lie elsewhere, ie the bully himself or herself may have been bullied. An over-harsh parental reaction to discovering that their child has been bullying may be disastrous.
The truth is that this is a very delicate area which needs ready school access to psychological advice. This, however, is thin on the ground in our under-provided educational sector.
In the meantime much more needs to be done to alert all schools to the problem. While many schools are now attempting to handle bullying sensitively, some are still in denial.