What are school principals doing about child safety?

ON December 18, the Irish Primary Principals Network (IPPN), following a survey of 630 primary schools, said that 80% of school principals have “deep-rooted concerns in relation to child protection in primary schools in Ireland”.

This is an alarming, unacceptable and very dangerous situation. School principals themselves are the designated liaison persons for the implementation of child protection policies and procedures in schools. They also sit on boards of management with which they are obliged to raise all such concerns.

The question must now be urgently posed: if 80% of primary school principals have “deep-rooted concerns”, what are they doing about it as a matter of the gravest import? Are the members of IPPN in effect telling the public that they have not been doing their jobs?