Mr. Ian Power:

I want to pick up the last point around video. We have seen clearly that even post-pandemic young people from rural areas really like being able to access their support immediately rather than having to wait. Rural public transport is a huge issue so in terms of accessing support, it is a means to do that. There is an element of choice for the young person as well. Obviously there are issues around confidentiality and making sure the young person is alone and all of those things. However, it is a really important element of our service provision that we allow young people that choice. Turning to the structural issues, the Senator started talking about the link between education and health, but I think the Departments responsible for children and housing need to be part of this discussion, as do other Departments to be honest. In 2018 the Civil Service Management Board , that is, the group of Secretaries General, decided it would be a great idea to create a unit called the youth mental health pathfinder unit. In a similar vein to the Criminal Assets Bureau this would be a multi-departmental unit where a director is recruited through the Public Appointments Service. Principal officers would be seconded from each of those three Departments to more comprehensively tackle the issues around children's and young people's mental health. Unfortunately in our spare time we have been trying to follow up on that initiative, given that it is an initiative of the Civil Service itself and had sponsorship from the Government. However, every time we write to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and every time we write to Health they say that the other one is currently responsible. I think the committee is potentially in a position to ask representatives from both Departments to come in and really say. In many ways it may have consequences for the NGO sector in streamlining resources and things like that, because I think the sector really wants that to happen in a way where leadership is shown across multiple Departments with responsibility. We have talked about online safety, so potentially that is another Department that should be involved.

I finally want to come back to the point around stresses and the cost of living etc. In 50808 we are funded by the HSE to have conversations that listen to young people, that validate their feelings and their experiences. A lot of their anxieties come about by their basic needs not being met. These are things like poverty, not having access to quality housing, and young people living in hotels with their family. We also see the impact of social anxiety, which was there before, but has been compounded by the pandemic for lots of young people. We see that society has huge expectations of young people and their anxieties are heightened by trying to live up to that.

We are concerned by the talk of recession. There were lots of column inches in the papers on Sunday about the possibility of that next year. We saw the link between suicide and economic depression in 2010 to 2015. We need to make sure the fundamental supports are put in place. There is no point in us talking about therapy if someone is not able to access food or housing. We need to be clear that there is more we can do to be more joined up between health, education and children. We have to meet peoples' basic needs before we can ever talk about therapy.