Ms Miriam Kenny:

We must be aware of the impact on children when they are not able to attend school because they do not have proper support. I see it professionally in education. It impacts on every part of the child's life and the family's life when the support is not there. It impedes the child's potential and their future and leaves families in a desperate situation without proper access to child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, and things like that. I do not think there is a full understanding of how much distress that causes all of the members of the family and the child who is at the centre of that.