Pauline O'Reilly (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their opening statements which I read in detail. I want to focus on two things. The first is the resources. It is important that every time witnesses come before us that they raise the importance of resources so that it gets into our reports. Nobody wants to hear that schools are not funded enough and that teachers do not get the kind of training they need.

The second thing is training. There was a real call for further training for teachers from today's witnesses and the witnesses who came before the committee last week. That has come through loud and clear from all of the opening statements today. I have come from a National Women's Council briefing on education around relationship sexuality education, RSE, and healthcare. The call there was for further training and professionalisation for social, personal and health education, SPHE, teachers, for instance, in order to be able to deliver what is now quite complex. Society has become really complex and young people are dealing with that. As Fórsa pointed out in its opening statement, 40% of adults have mental health challenges and that starts out somewhere. That starts when people are really young.

Do witnesses think it is about focused teacher training for some subjects like SPHE or do they think it needs to be across the board?

As I said last week, teachers are sometimes a little like GPs. Everyone comes to teachers although they might not be the people qualified to deal with a particular issue. They are the conduit to send people in the right direction. Should mental health training be provided to all teachers?

Second, I will focus on the lack of services for teachers to direct pupils to. It is all very well to understand that someone is experiencing a mental health crisis but everyone in this room will recognise if there is no one for teachers to refer pupils to, they will be left carrying the can because of the relationships they build with young people. I welcome any thoughts the witnesses might have on that.