Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their attendance. I will be very specific with my first question. My subsequent questions might be a bit more general. My first question is for Mr. Smyth. He made the point very well on the issues surrounding trainee clinical psychologists and educational counselling psychologists. I will make a general point first. We discuss mental health a lot in these institutions. It is a big political issue. It is not just related to third level, albeit it is a huge issue there and among young people. Fundamentally there are certainly issues with the allocation of resources and how systems are managed. The fundamental problem is we do not have enough mental health professionals in the system. No matter what way we chop and change it there are not enough to meet the demands. This is a huge political issue. A significant element of this is the fact that people cannot afford to become psychologists or psychotherapists.

I will come back to my point on clinical psychologists, which may also apply to educational and counselling psychologists. An issue arises prior to becoming a trainee. There are approximately 60 places for clinical psychologists and to qualify for them they also need clinical experience. To obtain this clinical experience they need to be from money or be willing to get into debt or work lunatic hours at the weekends. Perhaps there are similar issues with psychotherapists. Does Mr. Smyth have a response on this? Some of the solution probably relates to assistant psychologist positions that are funded. There are probably not enough of these that provide sufficient clinical experience for people to qualify for the funded programmes. Perhaps there are comparable issues with counselling and educational psychologists. The issue is how to get clinical experience without getting into €20,000 or €25,000 debt.