John Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)

In one fell swoop on budget day, the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Quinn, announced the end of a critical service that has supported students for over 30 years. The Minister spoke of protecting front line services and surely guidance counsellors are just that, part of the front line service. The Minister speaks of schools being allowed to manage guidance provision at their own discretion. Maybe he might explain to us how schools will do this.

Recently, I made representations to the Minister on Gorey community school, which, with 1,000 students, is one of the biggest secondary schools in the country. He sent me back a reply today outlining all the reasons he had to make the cuts and all the ways the school could continue to have guidance counsellors for the future, but it all was gobbledygook put together with little concern for the students in that school who have all the problems of which Deputy Neville spoke earlier. It is important the Minister recognises the difficulties and problems large schools such as Gorey community school will face in the future.

Effective guidance counselling from junior cycle through to senior cycle has been shown to play an important role in preventing early school-leaving and helping progression to third level. As my party leader, Deputy Martin, pointed out last night during the debate, Ireland now has one of the world's highest school completion rates and it is important that this would continue.

Guidance counsellors offer not only educational guidance, but also personal guidance. Guidance counsellors deal with a range of issues on a day-to-day basis such as mental health and family issues. Many guidance counsellors in my county of Wexford spend much time, even outside school hours, advising children from less well-off families and making a valuable contribution to how they progress in school in the future.

It is the students who benefit most from this service who will suffer the most from this nasty cut by the Minister. A student from a disadvantaged background who may not have the support and advice at home to go on to third level or a student who cannot afford expensive private counselling services to deal with depression or other problems will suffer most as a consequence of this decision. The well-off student from an educated family background with financial resources will do fine. I am concerned about the students from less well-off families that I have mentioned. We will end up with a more inequitable school system where schools that can afford to buy-in counselling services will do so. This cut will affect not only students from disadvantaged backgrounds, but also students with disabilities and learning difficulties and students with different ethnic origins.

While other members of the school management and teaching staff may also play a role, they are not qualified to provide real counselling services. The notion that the appointment of 300 assistant principal posts will somehow alleviate the position in schools completely misses the point regarding the important role of the career guidance counsellor. I would like to hear the Minister explain how he feels that 300 assistant principals will now be able to step in and carry out the role of the career guidance counsellors. I do not know of any assistant principals who are qualified in this area. While they might be able to help, they are not qualified in this field.

Students will be poorer as a result of these cuts. Many will not go on to college, many will give up on complex application forms, many will be given the wrong advice and many will not seek help for serious mental or related problems from which they may be suffering. Disadvantaged students will be economically and socially deprived as a result of these nasty cuts.

It is important that the Minister looks seriously at the matter and reflects again. He admitted last week that he made a mistake and he certainly made a mistake in this area. The recent ESRI report stated that students increasingly want a one-to-one guidance service in their schools. The Minister should reverse this decision and allow guidance counsellors to continue what they have been doing for the past 30 years in terms of providing a valuable resource for students.

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