Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young is­sued an apol­o­gy to all vic­tims of bul­ly­ing yes­ter­day.

He did so as he dou­bled down on his state­ment on bul­ly­ing where he sought to ad­dress an in­ci­dent from 33 years ago while he was a stu­dent at St Mary’s Col­lege in Port-of-Spain.

Young said at this stage in his life he has no is­sue say­ing sor­ry to vic­tims nor will he triv­i­alise any­one’s feel­ings.

Re­in­forc­ing his com­mit­ment to use his of­fice to ad­dress the is­sue, he said it serves no one well re­vis­it­ing the is­sue decades lat­er, nor can he change the past.

“I am sor­ry for any child who has had to en­dure bul­ly­ing which, as we now know, is an is­sue. With re­spect to that is­sue, I’ve al­ready ad­dressed it, and I am not go­ing to do any­thing to af­fect per­sons’ rec­ol­lec­tion of the in­ci­dent or to wa­ter down, for want of a bet­ter word, their feel­ings, how they feel, be­cause it was a trau­mat­ic in­ci­dent, not on­ly for Mr Khan but for me and for many oth­er peo­ple as we’re see­ing com­ing out of it.

“So I stand here with­out fear, and I am apol­o­gis­ing to every sin­gle child who has had to en­dure bul­ly­ing. And how do we ad­dress it now, and how do we move for­ward as a so­ci­ety, in par­tic­u­lar in our ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem? That’s where my fo­cus is go­ing to be.”

The Prime Min­is­ter said he will al­so be ad­dress­ing the is­sue of cy­ber­bul­ly­ing since he, too, has been at­tacked on­line.

When it comes to bul­ly­ing with­in the Par­lia­ment, Young is ask­ing his col­leagues to be more sen­si­tive.

“The pos­i­tive that has come out of an in­ci­dent that took place 33 years ago is that it has brought to the fore­front of con­ver­sa­tion this con­cept of bul­ly­ing and what I in­vite all of Trinidad and To­ba­go to do now, in­clud­ing col­leagues, in­clud­ing mem­bers of the Cab­i­net, mem­bers of all po­lit­i­cal par­ties, is let’s be a lit­tle bit more sen­si­tive. Let us un­der­stand every­one is a hu­man be­ing that we’re deal­ing with and how do we, be­cause you’re on­ly in con­trol of your­self at the end of the day—how do we as in­di­vid­u­als, through our ac­tions and our words, be a bit more sen­si­tive on how it may af­fect peo­ple?” he asked.

Mov­ing ahead, Young said he will be work­ing with re­li­gious lead­ers to en­sure bul­ly­ing is ad­dressed in schools.

Young was asked whether he felt the bul­ly­ing is­sue would af­fect him at the polls. He replied that he did not know what would or would not af­fect him.