Mr. Peter Hussey:

The first thing I wanted to say was to Senator Ruane about the film "I Used To Live Here". "Yes" is the answer to her question which was whether theatre can play a role in schools. It was an interesting question because our theatre company was engaged by that community she spoke about in Killinarden to make the first version of that film around suicide. We called it "Bruised". Based on that, with the young people participating, other people saw it and out of that came a new project which resulted in the film "I Used To Live Here". It is an interesting connection. Things do grow from one small item to another.

Deputy Martin asked about the aesthetic engagement in schools. It ties into what was said here about teachers feeling that they have to be psychiatrists, but are afraid of that. I would echo the idea that all that teachers need to be given an opportunity to do is teach, and not to be involved in anything other than teaching.

I am also involved in teacher training. In teacher training, further education, adult and community education, we are trying to encourage this idea of teaching. The problems in teaching have been identified for the past 20, 30, 40 or 50 years - that is, that standardisation of results and testing everyone at the same level produce a huge amount of stress.

The idea of managerialism coming in puts a lot more pressure on teachers because they have all of this to attend to, as well as preparing young people for a world of work which is the impact of the economy on them. All of these have nothing to do with teaching at a fundamental level. More and more teachers are getting fewer opportunities to teach. The stressful output of that is passed right on to students and pupils, while their stress is passed down along the line.

Any good teacher knows how to produce an aesthetic engagement learning process if they have the time and are allowed to do it. We should be trying to remove the other things out of their way in order to let that happen.

We do not have a formal interaction with schools, but we certainly do a lot of projects when we are asked to go into schools. Young people who have come up through the youth theatre have done quite a lot of them, so they teach and work with young people themselves. However, there is not a formalised referral system. We are a voluntary organisation so we do not have staff. We could probably benefit from having staff who could look at the administrative work and that might happen in future.

Aesthetic engagement and short-term modules are vital, but that is what good teaching is. Really good teaching is about inculcating that level of involvement and active mindfulness. The artistic programme can be delivered in schools but I would reiterate that it is not something one can ask just anybody to do who has a love of it. It needs careful implementation.