Marian Harkin (Sligo-Leitrim, Independent) | Oireachtas source

My apologies again for leaving the meeting. A number of Deputies are running to different meetings and so on.

I heard the remarks of Deputy Flaherty. I missed part of the discussion while I was out of the room. He referred to a monster being created. I believe some of the witnesses will meet the Minister after the meeting. If it is appropriate, I ask that they send us a short email or whatever to let us know what progress, if any, they make. That can be sent either to individual members or to the committee - I will let the Chairman decide on that. It is an area with which I am not as familiar with as perhaps I ought to be and I would be interested to hear of any progress they make.

My second point relates to Deputy Carroll MacNeill's comments on CAMHS. I received emails from parents, especially after the south Kerry issue, regarding children being over-medicated or inappropriately medicated. I would like to hear the views of our guests on that and how to protect children from that happening. Parents go to the expert; the person who knows. It is their child. One is always in a more vulnerable position when one goes to a person who knows more; it does not matter who the person is. How can our guests, as parents, advocate strongly in this position and feel that they really have a voice here?

Ms Jennings made the point earlier that principals have stated the numbers are decreasing and they just cannot get the numbers to work. As regards the Maltese model, the documentation provided by the witnesses states that it is originally offered to school staff who not only earn an increased salary to work in special schools year-round, but are also well rewarded for completing the summer school. That is something we need to consider because people have extra costs, such as on childcare, transport or whatever, but we should be upfront regarding people also needing a break and time off. The document further states that when numbers to run the programme were not achieved, there was an expansion to recruit staff from other disciplines. There are two important pieces there. If we could use them, it might make the job of some principals a bit easier. I read what the principals said and what the students said. It was the only thing in all the documentation that gave me some hope.