Mr. Ian Power:

I thank members for the invitation to speak today. I do not think there has ever been a more important moment to talk about mental health and our education systems and we in SpunOut welcome this opportunity to discuss these matters. Before we begin, I will give a quick outline of who we are. SpunOut is Ireland's youth information service, run by young people for young people. Through our platforms, we provide young people in Ireland with access to quality, non-judgmental information services, with more than 150,000 readers availing of our information resources every month and thousands more engaging with our content on social media channels such as Instagram and TikTok. We also provide a round-the-clock crisis support service through our 50808 text helpline, funded by the HSE.

Around 4,000 young people reach out to us by texting 50808 every month, a significant number of whom are struggling with anxiety, depression, the urge to self-harm, body image issues and, in one in five cases, thoughts of suicide. One in five is a figure that has been remarkably stable over the past three years and it is showing no sign of reducing. It is easiest, when talking about the work that SpunOut and 50808 do for young people, to present our impact in their own words. One texter recently told us, when referring to volunteers, "they were the difference between me [self-harming] and not, me having a scar for the rest of my life and not, me going to bed feeling like I deserve to be here and be heard, and not." That is the service that incredibly talented staff and volunteers work so hard to provide. As a front-line, crisis service, we deal with people at one particular moment of acute need.

If we want to look at the systems that contribute to good or bad mental health outcomes more generally, then the role of our educational systems is simply inescapable, as drivers of stress and anxiety in their own right, as settings where young people live out much of their lives, and, when things work well, as real, invaluable sources of support. It is clear that the main stressors for school and college students tend to be local to their educational environment, so it stands to reason that most supports need to be local as well. Where supports are properly funded and well-integrated into the school or college system, we hear about their successes. When those services are not available, or not adequately resourced, we hear about their failings.

Young people want services that provide immediate support, that exist where they need them, and when such services are in place, they are not shy about telling us just how much they help. It is clear to us, for instance, that the National Educational Psychological Service needs to have a much wider role in our schools. It needs to be empowered to act as a co-ordinator for psychological supports across the school system. It needs to have a role in psychological education for students. Bluntly, NEPS needs to be better funded to carry out its purpose.

The question of better resourcing cannot be disentangled from the mental health crisis we are seeing among young people in Ireland. There are positive, cost-neutral reforms but, ultimately and crucially, there is no substitute for adequate funding. As of this moment, that funding is not in place. That funding has to be found because it is the only way we will begin to tackle the real and growing need for mental health supports, particularly in our secondary schools. We stress that it is not just the role of the Department of Health or HSE to fund mental health services but also the role of the Departments of Education and Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to resource the sector.

We know that the onset of mental illness peaks between the ages of 15 and 25, meaning students are at particular risk just as they enter into the uniquely stressful situation of the leaving certificate cycle. Mental illness is the number one health condition for young people. No physical illness or condition compares. As Ms Murray said, the invaluable My World Survey tells us that, in 2019, before any of the impacts of lockdowns and the pandemic, 40% of young people were experiencing depression and 49% were reporting anxiety levels outside the normal range.

I mentioned earlier that one in five young people we talk to through the 50808 text line mention thoughts of suicide. Unfortunately, the My World Survey results are just as stark, if not much starker. They tell us that 6% of young people surveyed had actually made a suicide attempt. Last year, the National Office for Suicide Prevention put the number of deaths by suicide at 399, which is 59 more people than in 2020, and the first reported increase in deaths by suicide since the trend was reversed in 2016.

Reliable and resourced in-school mental health supports are unquestionably part of the answer.

Schools-based services can act not only as front-line case workers but as indispensable links to outside services to help students and their families navigate the wider mental health system, often a difficult and alienating experience for people who are already at their most vulnerable.

These reforms are far from impossible. We only need to look at the real progress that has been made in higher education institutions in recent years. We are still a long way from a perfect system and there is much to do to safeguard student mental health supports at third level, but funding for student counselling has increased, which is very welcome and is going to change and saves lives. For our part, the 50808 service has been expanding our relationships with higher education institutions. We are key partners with every college and university and we believe the next step for mental health support in higher education is for the State to fund at least a part-time, if not full-time, psychiatrist in each and every higher education institution. This will be an immeasurable benefit to the students who will need it and will revolutionise each institution's ability to provide in-house support to young people where and when they need it most.

Recruitment of mental health professionals is, of course, a challenge right across the system but we believe that, with the right resources, this could be achieved. More broadly, we need to look at widening the pool from which we draw our mental healthcare workforce. We are up against a global shortage of trained mental health practitioners and we are well aware that there is no quick-fix solution, but that means it is all the more critical that we invest in those longer term solutions now. We need to create more training positions across all mental health discipline so we can meet the very real service needs that we will continue to face in the next few years and beyond. I thank members for their attention and look forward to the conversation with colleagues.