Mr. Tiernan O'Neill:

We hear a lot about the co-ordination of services but, in our experience, it is very much person-dependent. There is no framework underpinning it. In my experience, there is no meaningful co-ordination in the delivery of services on the ground. We have seen over the years where we have had exceptional HSE staff who go the extra mile, come into the school, engage with the school and with staff and organise and liaise with parents in the school because parents are comfortable in the school, but that person may then move on and we get back to a very narrow, rigid framework. Flexibility to engage with schools works. We see that daily.

I have been working in Moyross for 25 years and I have seen the journey the community has been on. If we go back to the noughties, it was quite infamous in terms of the societal ills that pervaded in modern day Ireland. We were at a point even then where we had children coming to school on a daily basis who were expected to park their psychological baggage at the gate and come in and engage with a curriculum. We wonder then why tables are turned upside down and there is huge rage and emotion and obviously then there are suspensions and expulsions. That was just symptomatic of what was happening in the community, which was imploding and these children’s lives were imploding. We were left with a decision: do we just do the same old same old of rolling suspensions or do we try to meaningfully engage?

That is when we went about trying to source philanthropic supports to enable us to engage with the children in a therapeutic way, and it has been transformative. By no means are we saying the school is perfect but I have seen the journey it has been on and it is because of the multidisciplinary supports and philanthropic support.

I am deeply frustrated that this is not provided as par for the course but is, rather, the exception and not the norm. The children deserve this and it is required. Going back to the old adage about being penny wise and pound foolish, if we invest in young children, we will reap the rewards. Looking at the issues with residential services for children with additional needs and the care system, we see what it costs on a weekly basis to keep a child in care. I know the cost because we deal with this on a daily basis. It costs €5,000 to €6,000 a week to keep a child in residential care. It would be much better if the interventions could be put in place when these children are young and if we worked with the families.

We have done that a lot in our school. We have more than 50 people - parents and grandparents - engaged in counselling programmes every week to support the parents of our children. Much of that support is coming about through voluntary efforts but we are very fortunate to have a clinical psychologist, Dr. Declan Aherne, who works pro bonoin the school and provides clinical oversight to the programme. We have counsellors who provide voluntary supports to parents. That work with the families is necessary. It takes a whole village to raise a child. That is really important and we have seen the benefits that are reaped from that multi-agency, wraparound model. It has led to huge improvements and gains in our school.