Ms Anne Tansey:

Deputy Nolan will be aware of the youth mental health task force. One of its recommendations was that services would be provided to third level students. The HEA is setting up a working group to address that. There may be some progress on that in the coming months, years or whatever.

On the caseload for NEPS psychologists, we try to provide a national service. We have rolled out our service to all primary and post-primary schools in the country. I suppose that requires us to provide a service to a large number of schools. We work in collaboration with all schools. There are more than 60,000 teachers in schools, 13,000 of whom are special education teachers. We work with them within the system to try to provide an educational psychological service that also builds the capacity of that school to support the children within the system. We work a consultative model. We have broadened our reach. We provide an advisory service to schools. Some 80% of our work is working directly with children, but 20% of our work is working to build capacity to advise schools. We consult about children. We provide advice and support to teachers and parents on how to best support those children. We have broadened our reach in that way and we can reach more children in that way in an indirect service via the teachers to the children.