Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State and her officials, who will be glad to know I will be very brief. When this Government engaged in the cuts affecting our career guidance teachers in schools, I met representatives of many groups. I was shocked. My understanding was that these people guide students in their career but it was frightening to see the number of young people who had psychological issues and mental health problems and who saw these teachers as the first point of contact. What upset these people was not that they were in many instances to lose their jobs, but rather that they were being redirected to mainstream teaching, leaving a void in many schools around the country. The young people used to be able to turn to a person for a chat. In many cases, the young person did not go to the teacher for career guidance but rather because the teacher had the luxury of time, he or she would use that time to engage with young people, notice them and spot issues that a busy teacher running to a class would or could not. This is an important aspect that the Government should consider. The cuts were too tight to the bone and I was not being sensationalist when I stated that at the time. I said what I did because I believed, having listened to the teachers, that the move could cost young people their lives because they could miss early intervention when a problem arose.

It is time for a process like that used by the Road Safety Authority, RSA, to deal with the problem, as has been mentioned by others. When intolerable numbers of people were dying on our roads, it was deemed correct to set up the Road Safety Authority to tackle the issue. Much money and resources were put into tackling the problem and, overall, it has worked and brought down the number of deaths on the road. Considering that the number of people using the roads is increasing, the initiative has worked far more successfully even than people might realise. There are many agencies doing excellent work and we have come a long way but it is time for a system based on the RSA, with publicity being provided and bringing all the agencies together under one umbrella, to get them to work together. That is really important.

It may take me half a minute to tell this story but it would be good for a Minister of State to hear it. I appreciate she does her clinic work but it is always good to hear a story from the ground. As an example of what people are going through, today I had a telephone call from an individual suffering from lifelong mental health issues. The person receives excellent care three or four days a week but must travel to the counselling himself. It keeps him together. He told me he is missing many days of treatment and when I asked him why that was so, he told me that I know where he lives and where he must go. It is a round trip of perhaps less than 40 miles. His problem is that he does not have money to run his car and he had often hitchhiked because he could not put petrol in the car. If he could not get anybody to carry him to his appointment, he would stay at home, meaning it was a bad day for him. It is nice for the Minister of State and her senior officials to hear this as it is a true story which I only heard today. It is frightening what people are going through. There is help available for that person and people rang him to see why he could not make his appointment. He operates on the tightest of budgets and could not afford to travel to get help. It is nice for the officials to hear that story as it conveys the impact of the current crisis and the financial constraints on people.