Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I fundamentally believe in the importance of this project. As regards the school and what was made available to it, our National Educational Psychological Service teams were in the school on Thursday, the day of the incident. They arrived at the school immediately after the incident and they have been there since. They engaged with the school over the weekend. They will be in the school for as long as is needed.

Putting that to one side, in terms of the bigger picture of the importance of this type of programme, as I said earlier, we have taken the opportunity to pilot two types of project. Maybe going forward both types will be available in our schools, different schools meeting different needs, or maybe it will be one or a combination of the two or whatever. We are taking the opportunity to get it right. I acknowledge that NEPS staff have travelled to various places, including the UK, and to the best of my knowledge will be back there again in terms of evaluating best practice in other places, similar to the trip the committee made. It is my ambition that this will be rolled out as far as we can roll it out. We will not do that without the learning we will receive from the pilot because it will be really insightful and will determine how we plan this going forward.