John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Absolutely. The point was well made when Ms Murphy spoke about the capacity and resource issues that were there prior to this huge increase in unaccompanied minors who have been presenting.

I wish to home in on primary schools. I spoke to a number of teachers over the past number of days to see what challenges they experience in dealing with traumatic experiences. Children are coming from all sorts of conflicts and war zones. The Ukrainian situation has presented huge challenges. I was speaking to one teacher who has a number of Ukrainian children in the classroom. When the fire alarm goes off, the children are under the tables, looking for refuge. That is absolutely appalling. They are dealing with children who have not spoken to their dad who is on the front line for three or four days, and trying to deal with all of that trauma.

Mr. Ó Ruairc presented a figure in terms of the psychological supports being offered for teachers. Webinars based on the Hobfoll principles were attended by almost 1,500 teachers, and we know the five essential principles contained in that. However, that seems to be a very low figure when there are more than 42,000 primary teachers in the State. I am not sure whether the witnesses would agree. Teachers are educators but there have been challenges presented here. I wish to tease out that figure to see what more can be done to support teachers. Again, I spoke to teachers and they said they found it hard to access and get supports that they need, and there are other situations. I am not sure whether anyone would have any information on the following. They are dealing with Ukrainian children, in particular, who are up at 5.30 a.m. or 6 a.m. and have to do online Ukrainian classes first at 6 a.m., after which they come into primary school to do a whole separate day’s work, essentially. There are then two lots of work on top of them at the end of the school day. I am not sure whether that is the norm and how prevalent that is. However, those pose challenges, additional burdens and stress on children in difficult situations.

I am conscious of my time. I want to touch on Student Universal Support Ireland, SUSI, grants but perhaps I will come back in on that if there is a second round.