Mr. Donal Smyth:

I responded earlier on this. We have professional counselling for senior referees in the country, which comes through me as a referee match official, and support mechanisms. Each county has its own referees' administrator and a referees' administrating committee that look after referees as they are going through the system. They are the first point of contact. The importance of the system of referees supporting each other is there as well. As one of the other contributors said, we have a graduated report that finishes with full-time counselling whenever required, and that is done in either of two ways, namely, by referral by me, which I can do through the association through ordinary referees, club wise, or they can talk to the counsellor confidentially. That is entirely between the counsellor and the referee.