Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their presentations, which I found fascinating. We have had quite a number of presentations on this issue. I welcome the young people who are present to witness our deliberations because this issue obviously affects them too. We have heard quite a number of presentations from different agencies and actors over the past number of weeks. The feeling is that there is a tsunami of a mental health crisis across our school system and among our young people.

I want to touch on a few points. I am taken by the model in Limerick. It sounds like it is excellent and it is working, but what depresses me is that it took such philanthropic funding to set it up. This can be the nature of things. I will make a few points that I often make. Our educational system is not built around children. It is built around what anybody else wants, but not what is best for children. It is built around what the actors who are inherent in the education system want, including teacher unions, patron bodies or the Department. We rarely hear directly from children or their parents. The system is deliberately set up like that, constitutionally, which is a problem. The State does not feel as if it has a de factomanagement role. It funds the system, but it does not feel like it manages it, necessarily. The system at second level is primarily exam focused, and when we try to reform that we are met with resistance. There was massive resistance to junior certificate reform, and we are currently being met with significant resistance to leaving certificate reform. When I look at the young people in the Gallery today, I wince at the thought of what I went through as a young person in secondary school. It has not changed in all that time. It is intensely stressful to go from what can be quite a compassionate environment at primary level to a very subject-orientated environment. It is not possible for students to build relationships with 40-minute classes. The change to that type of atmosphere at second level is a difficult one for young people to get their heads around. I want to speak to how we can reform that.

I will make what might be regarded as a controversial point. On the introduction of a model at primary level that provides the wraparound services that have been discussed, the problem is that there are 3,300 primary schools in Ireland. There are a lot of schools. If we want to provide services that are going to properly assist those children, having 3,300 schools is the difficulty. A service cannot be provided in each and every one of those schools, so we have to find a mechanism that enables us to do it effectively. We need a critical mass in order to provide that service. Perhaps that is an unfair thing to say.

I have a few questions for the witnesses. First, how can we manage our education system to ensure the primacy of the child's experience in the overall policy setting? Second, I ask the witnesses to comment on the over-emphasis on exams and exam pressure at second level. Third, if we do advocate, as we should, for this type of wraparound service that is freely available to young people, teachers and schools, how do we manage that in a system that has such a multiplicity of schools right across the country? There are 4,000 schools in total, 3,300 of which are at primary level.