Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein)
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Gabhaim buíochas lenár n-aíonna go léir. Tá go leor le smaoineamh air ansin agus moltaí atá an-úsáideach dúinn mar choiste. I thank the witnesses very much. It has been one of the most interesting sessions. I apologise for being late. There was some traffic on the way up due to the change in the layout of the Dunkettle roundabout.

It is particularly useful to look over some of the statements. There are concrete solutions and proposals that are useful to us as a committee. My first question is quite general, however. I will direct it to the Ombudsman for Children in the first instance but anyone else who wants to pick it up can do so. It is quite general but it is something that occurred to me. According to the statement from Barnardos, one in three of the young people it supports suffer from anxiety or general mental health difficulty. There is pressure on child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, and all the rest of it. Some of what we do has to be about how we address this but some of it is identifying the causes as well. There are undoubtedly stressors within the education system in terms of examinations and everything to do with that. We can all speculate on this side but from the ombudsman's office's perspective, does it have any evidential basis for the primary reasons that young people's mental health is under such strain? What are the primary causes that are driving increased demand for CAMHS and pushing anxiety? Maybe it is too large a question but it is interesting all the same.