Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour)
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I thank the witnesses for the presentations. I feel, as I am sure my colleagues do, that the presentations have been overwhelming. It feels like we face a tsunami of mental health challenges across the country. The witnesses made strong points about the lack of psychologists, the lack of funding and the issues that young people are having.

I will start on a positive note. Last week, I attended the Yellow Flag Programme awards, which were rolled out by the Irish Traveller Movement. A number of schools across the country have taken the initiative to go with that programme and speak about integration and anti-racism policies. They are seeing success. I was at a presentation from Scoil Chiaráin in Donnycarney last Thursday night. I think the programme is called "what he needs". There was a film that deals with toxic masculinity and how to respond to it positively in issues that young people come across. There are individual schools that are doing their best, notwithstanding the existing challenges. I have separated out some of the mental health challenges that young people can face. They can deal with issues outside school that are then brought into school. Individuals may be dealing with issues, such as health issues or sexual orientation issues. There may be school-based issues.

I am always interested in the wider context. We often talk about funding and strategies, which is absolutely right. What if the way in which we set up the education system is exacerbating these problems? We expect 12- and 13-year-olds to transition to a new stage of their education at a point when they are becoming more self-aware. That can become a traumatic change. We have an exam-focused second level education system which has to be more stressful than other education systems across Europe. We are constantly talking about examination reform. We seem to be ill-equipped to challenge the patronage model of schools and how we separate children by gender, income and in other ways.

I will focus these questions on Ms Murray and Mr. Power. What percentage of these issues are we dealing with which are caused by schools? What percentage of them are being brought into school from the outside? Do we have to have a conversation about how equipped or ill-equipped the entire system is for what we ask young people to go through to deal with their lives and the individual mental health stress they may have?