Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their attendance and for their submissions. It is important to recognise that society has been imposing extra responsibilities on teachers and educators over the past 20 to 30 years. I acknowledge that although the witnesses recognise they have an important role in identifying mental health challenges children and young people face, they emphasise they are not qualified medically to respond to that appropriately or in the way the student requires. I commend them on appreciating that mental health issues can arise and generally do, as Ms Leydon said, in people who are adolescents. It is an unusual illness in a way. Most of the time, illnesses are encountered later in life, but with mental health, it appears that many young people encounter it in their adolescence. I commend the witnesses on appreciating and acknowledging that they have a role to play, albeit not a clinical one.

Mr. Honer referred to the MindOut programme operated in Galway in his submission. I want to look at this because it appears to be a preventative mechanism, as opposed to treating people who have a mental health issue; this is a process of trying to make them more resilient. How does it operate? Does Mr. Honer think it is something that should be recommended more broadly?