Ms Máirín Ní Chéileachair:

That is a timely question. Recently, we met a group of teachers and principals who had been involved in the pilot therapies in schools programme. Under that scheme, schools were given access to speech and language therapists and occupational therapists, who worked with clusters of schools. There was also meant to be access to nursing services, but that did not transpire. While the pilot's roll-out was affected by Covid, the principals and teachers involved were complimentary of the short period of time in which they engaged with the therapists. Schools and teachers can give a great deal of support to pupils, but we have pupils who are extremely needy and who need other therapeutic interventions. This is not new. More than 30 years ago, I was involved in a pilot project where teacher counsellors were allocated a certain number of schools, but because of the definition of "counselling" in this country and what counselling is held to be, it became the support service and never came out of its pilot.

The level of need in schools is great. One of the main issues is that we do not have access to therapists. It is difficult, even for the HSE, to recruit therapists of any kind. Unfortunately, the therapists who were involved in the pilot programme have been withdrawn back into the HSE and the schools have told us that they have not had communication regarding the scheme since last April. Maybe that has changed in the past week and I am unaware of it, but the situation is at crisis level in our schools. We all recognise the value of intervention at the earliest stage to help children cope with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties.