Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The €500,000 allocated to implementing this report comes against the background of the €35 million that the Minister for Education and Skills has taken away from the guidance counselling service. This does not empower schools. Schools used the €35 million that has been cut specifically for providing guidance counselling services. The Minister told the schools that they need to continue to provide that service but instead find the money from their other resources. That is the background against which the Government is introducing the anti-bullying guidelines launched yesterday. In no way has it empowered schools.

The Minister's and the Taoiseach's use of the term "whole school approach" is totally wrong. I agree absolutely that we need a "whole school approach" to mental health and to addressing bullying. What happens when an ordinary member of the teaching staff is engaging with a student and refers him or her down the line to a qualified guidance counsellor, 700 of whom were available until this year, and that student knocks on the door but there is nobody behind the door? That is not a whole school approach to dealing with this issue. We need to tackle a growing epidemic of mental health problems among our young people in recent times. The only way to do so is to examine the damage that cut has caused and reverse it. I ask the Taoiseach to give up the 'oul rhetoric that we have heard from him and from the Minister on this issue, rhetoric of "empowerment" of "giving more responsibility to schools". They have in fact cut a front-line service and if we are serious about this issue, as we all need to be, he needs to reverse the cut and provide the resources at school level that can ensure we give the protection, advice and support necessary to our young people who need it now more than ever.

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