Ms Trish Murphy:

Obviously, we are very conscious of dropout levels across all of third level. The feedback from student counselling is that we are usually extremely impactful in retaining people in college. There is an innovative and transformational programme currently under way where there is a model of peer-assisted support happening in third level. We had this for a long time in Trinity College and it is called Student2Student. This is where every incoming student has a student mentor who is trained and who stays with them for one year. We hope that the new pilot programme for more support will be implemented across all third level colleges. It plays a huge part in getting people to stay and making them feel that they belong.