Fiona O'Loughlin (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairman and all our guests for their presentations and commitment in this area. I thank the schools, school communities and boards of management around the country. I have no doubt this is a complex and far-reaching issue on which so much needs to be done. I know all involved are doing their best to try to grapple with where we are. There is no doubt that pupils are experiencing emotional distress, trauma and bereavement, as was highlighted during the Covid-19 pandemic. It is fair to say that there is no one size to fit every situation. We need supports in place for students and teachers. There is no doubt we also need to look after the mental health of teachers.

It is important that we acknowledge that there has been a shift. The Minister for Education, Deputy Foley, sought and received funding of €5 million for a pilot scheme for a programme of counselling supports for children. That is ground-breaking in the development of school counselling. Those supports offer an opportunity for early intervention, which is of great importance. More important, this also brings recognition that mental health in schools is an educational issue.

Mr. McGorman stated that in his experience education has not come to the table. That concerns me and it is important that we try to do something about it because the particular link that was made indicated a divergence from the opinion that this is a health issue and not an educational one. I hope that will herald change. I acknowledge Seána Brady who did a of work in my party on that issue.

We should have preventative measures in place to ensure positive mental health as opposed to dealing with crises when they arrive. I have some experience of restorative justice. My understanding had been that this was a process that teachers and principals could bring in to schools when negative behaviour arose and that it could provide support in that way. It was a very good system. I was in a school recently in Newbridge where the teacher uses different forms of this throughout a school lesson and I was greatly impressed. This was to check in where students were and they could give a number. I am sure many of the witnesses are familiar with this. It was excellent and gave every pupil an opportunity to be heard with respect to where he or she was at that particular time point in time. I ask the witnesses to respond on that.

I agree that the whole-school, community-based approach is important, with stakeholders coming together. I am from Rathangan, which is a small town, and we had a very difficult situation approximately 12 years ago, which I will not go into now. We had a fantastic response from all the State services. They came together and formed a circle with the school and community. It very much worked in preventing further suicides and trying to ensure the young people felt heard, whether they needed to have positive mental health examples in their life or were in crisis themselves. I agree with the importance of home school liaison teachers and I am conscious of schools that do not have such a teacher. I completely agree with NABMSE on having a special school liaison teacher appointed to support families.

I ask the witnesses to comment, including on preventative measures and supporting positive mental health if they so wish. We need to support teachers the whole way along on this.