Dr. Harry Barry:

On the Deputy's question regarding the increase in anxiety and depression levels, there has been a phenomenal increase. I do not have statistics but in my interaction with principals and parents, the word "anxiety" is increasingly being mentioned.

Has there been an increase in the amount of depression? We need to be careful about what we mean by depression. We have to define the condition of depression properly. Many young people suffer from periods of low mood but I am not convinced they are clinically depressed. The incidence of clinical depression perhaps might be slightly larger. I would point to one particular group that we never discuss, college students. College students are undergoing a huge crisis in mental health. That is when I see depression occurring. It is not so often with the 15 year old child but more the child who crashes in college because they cannot cope and do not have the resilience they need to survive there.