Mairead Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein)

I thank the witnesses for coming in front of the committee. I will follow on from Deputy Hourigan’s questions. Ms Agbona explained her experience regarding the lunch break, the social side and transition year. It is powerful to hear this. It is good that we are having this conversation and that it is on the record of the committee. I thank her for that.

I will start with a question for Ms Agbona and then move to the other witnesses. My question relates to resources and how schools are enabled to have confidence in this area. As we have discussed, much of the time they have not had training or it is not available to them, and there can be an issue of lack of confidence to enable students on the social side. There is also the extracurricular side, whether that is sports or otherwise. How did Ms Agbona find that different in her third level experience? I would be interested to hear if she saw a change in that area.

I would be interested to hear what engagement the other witnesses have with schools on the element of sport, for example. They may have their own examples. Are schools asking for specific supports, such as visiting teachers? I am learning a lot from this conversation. I want to bring that to the next part of the committee meeting, where we will meet Department representatives, to see what the asks are and what we can bring to that.