Education (Leave for Injuries) Bill 2025: Second Stage Seanad Éireann — 2026-02-18 ============================================================ Laura Harmon (LAB), Industrial and Commercial Panel I acknowledge all the contributions from Senators, including Senators Cosgrove, Stephenson, Noonan, Clonan, Scahill, Kennelly, Nelson Murray, Ní Chuilinn, Crowe and Tully. I hope I have not forgotten anyone. I also acknowledge the Minister of State and the Minister, Deputy Naughton, and the comments she made, as well as those of Senators Ryan and Conway. It is significant that this Bill is being brought through the Seanad initially because we are a House that has more potential for collaboration. I refuse to be cynical. I genuinely appreciate the support shown by Senators across the House and by the Minister. I have to believe the Government wants this to happen and I have to believe it wants it to happen quickly and effectively and that it wants to support teachers and SNAs. I certainly will not be giving up on this. We want to get it to Committee Stage, which is the forum to bring amendments. I do not think there is any impediment to the legislation or to it being amended. Of course, we aimed high. You do not aim low with legislation; you want to cover everything that needs to be covered. There is potential for us to work together. I am putting out the call in that regard this evening. It is an open call. I want to work with the Minister. I want to work collaboratively with her as partners on this legislation, because it is not about any party or individual. We can all claim credit for this when it is done. Ultimately, however, this is about the campaigners in the Gallery. It is about Sophie Cole, Samantha O’Flanagan and her mother Angie. This is Angie's first time being in Leinster House, so I want to welcome her. This is about the teachers and the SNAs. It is also about the trade unions. Trade unions need to be essential to any agreements. Saying that they need to be included does not negate any other processes that are there. Of course education partners need to be part of this. Ultimately, the word "commitment" stood out this evening. There is a commitment from the Government to work on this, and that is what we need. Getting the Bill this far took a lot of work. It was drafted in light of significant legal advice and collaboration with campaigners and the unions. It took many conversations and much relationship-building. I quite enjoyed calling and chatting to many of the Government Senators, TDs and Ministers in respect of it. From my conversations with them, I know that they all feel very passionately about this and that they want to get it over the line. I am not going to be cynical; I am going to be positive because I am hopeful that we can get this done together. The real win is for the teachers, SNAs and the sector as a whole. It is really welcome to hear the clear commitment that we are no longer going to use the word "assault". We are very much in agreement there that we will move towards the word "injuries". The Minister was very clear on that. That will remove a lot of the stigma that SNAs and teachers feel around reporting and coming forward. They should not feel any stigma but, unfortunately, that hesitation is there because of the word "assault". They do not want to place any blame on the children or pupils in question. That change in language is going to be absolutely essential. We need to ensure that the remainder of the Bill is fully debated and remains intact. I do not want this to be the case of a race. Will the Government come forward with its own legislation and try to do it faster than I can get this to Committee Stage? I encourage us to work with the blueprint we have here. It is a good blueprint on which we can work together collaboratively. It would be nice, maybe for a change, for the public to see that we can actually have full collaboration across the House in respect of a cause and the passing of legislation. That is my hopeful message on which to end. I am delighted that we were able to get this through Second Stage. It is not easy to get Bills out of Second Stage sometimes. We will progress it to Committee Stage when we can. I really hope we can have a full debate at that point. Any amendments or suggestions would be welcome when it does reach Committee Stage. Again, I commend the campaigners. I commend Sophie in particular. This should have happened much sooner. It now needs to happen as quickly and in as robust a manner as possible. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-02-18/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:39+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-02-18