A self-confessed former bully says he hopes parents act when their children come to them with a problem.
This week on Newstalk we are Standing Up To Bullying.
Across the station we're hearing from teachers, parents and students about their experiences and what needs to change in our schools.
Alan told Lunchtime Live he was the bully in his school.
"I was that asshole as I would call myself back then, I was a complete asshole.
"My story was that the school I went to was a very tough school, no excuses there, but my older brothers would have been tough people in the area and I tried to play up, because I had to try and act like them.
"I never use it as an excuse, but I became the asshole in the yard who would be bullying people, be pushing people.
"Didn't care who they were - whether they were bigger, smaller... and that was through primary [school]."
Alan says there was "no set criteria" for his victims.
"I'm sure every bully tries to make excuses, I don't - I realise my behaviour was completely wrong.
"I would have been just out in the schoolyard and it could be something simple as playing football, and I'd target somebody.
"Or I'd be in the classroom, I'd be knocking their table over, knocking their chair over.
"To me at the time it was all a great laugh, it was all great fun; the people that it was being [done to], it wasn't so much fun for them".
But Alan says his outlook changed completely when he left that school.
"And it was really only when I left, when I went to secondary school, that was a complete different area - different postcode - where I wasn't known and where me brothers weren't known.
"I actually realised, pretty soon into that, that what I was doing was wrong".
And he says a former classmate recently confronted him about it.
"He says 'You were actually a p-r-i-c-k three times in school' and I said 'Really?'
"I'm a completely different person now, and I listened to him.
"I didn't actually realise I was so bad; I knew what I was doing was wrong but I didn't actually realise that.
"And he says 'You were, sometimes [sic] there used to be this fear when you came into school'.
"And for me that was horrible, that was absolutely soul destroying".
And he says he hopes parents and others will act on any signs of bullying.
"At least now there's bullying protocols in schools where you go inform a parent... the parents, I would hope, would act on it - I know I would.
"But...social media is probably as damaging a physical bullying."
He adds that if he could go back to his younger self, he would "give meself a good kick in the ass and say 'Look here, cop on to yourself'".
