Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)

I thank the Minister for responding to this matter. I tabled this question to find out what is happening in this regard. We all accept that there is a crisis and the House has spent some days recently discussing suicide prevention. One difficulty, however, is that schools may take different approaches to such cases. I am not saying that one approach will fit all, but this growing crisis must be dealt with. In one school that I am aware of, a number of children have died. The second child died on the anniversary of the first child's death. In that school, a child that needs counselling slips a note under the door of the principal. The difficulty, however, is that the child is then taken out of the classroom, so everyone knows why he or she is being taken out. That is the method in that school but there does not seem to be a pattern because other schools may adopt different approaches.

There is a recognition that there is a crisis facing many schools, but how should we approach it? The Minister referred to interventions and I understand that special needs assistants have a role with regard to children who may be at risk of self-harm. The worry is that if we cut back services in schools that have experienced these incidents, the problem will get worse.

It is about how we approach this problem, which is getting worse. There are additional problems in certain sectors, particularly the Traveller community. How will the Department examine the problem and approach it? I do not suggest there is one solution but we need to examine this again and come up with a new approach to this growing problem.

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