Eileen Flynn (Independent)
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Sharing the Vision is just this nightmare in my head at the minute. Anyway, moving on.

It is always important for people who have experience, even as a politician or whatever, to draw on that experience and say that they know what they are speaking about. When I was just 11, I was in a very bad accident. I lost my mother a few days before that accident. There were no supports around counselling or trauma in school, which led on to some anxiety and depression that still exists today because it was not dealt with when I was a young person. Those supports are well needed for young people today. In one sense, we are moving as a society because of the teachers, the SNAs and the professionals that we have now within our education system, who see that we should not be taking part in shaming people with mental health and trauma issues.

I know that in its investment for the budget, one of the INTO's recommendations was to invest in mental health. We are doing much talking around mental as a society, but we are doing very little action around young people and mental health. Again, we talk about some of the organisations. Some areas such as Ballyfermot, Crumlin, Inchicore and Cherry Orchard do not have the same level of mental health services as other more upper-class areas, if you want. I am aware that mental health does not have a class. However, there are different levels of pressure around people from, say, communities such as mine, namely, the Traveller community from Ballyfermot.

One of my questions is directed at Fórsa and the INTO. Would it be fair to say that DEIS or disadvantaged schools would need more mental health services than non-disadvantaged schools? The SNAs are lifesavers to a certain extent in our schools. Sharing the Vision states that the training is there for teachers. For example, if there is a young child in a wheelchair in a school, he or she has an SNA. The SNA is the carer and educator. They take on so many roles, as well as the teacher. It is important that we include our SNAs in the training. There are so many different levels of training that are expected for our teachers, for example, training in Traveller culture, other cultures and mental health. SNAs are carrying out the job on very low wages as well. They did not go to school to be professional psychologists; they went to be educators. There is a difference. That was the one question about disadvantaged schools.

I have a question around the barriers of being diagnosed with a mental disorder or any kind of disorder that young people would have in primary or secondary school.

What kind of positive impact would a diagnosis at a younger age have on a young person's life? I am sick to the teeth of pilot programmes that do not work or even if they do work, do not get implemented. I know the witnesses have the answers but how do we implement those answers? It is not about reinventing the wheel. We are not geniuses saying this is what we need to do. The answers are already there. Obviously, money is a big part of it. How do we turn them into actions?