Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I agree wholly with the Deputy. The issue is not whether we need to restore counselling and the level of counselling that must be provided in the school. We must be conscious that some schools provide models whereby the counselling is not delivered through one individual. If that is a working model that is delivering, we need to have some level of understanding of how it works on the ground. The first allocation made this September was not deemed ex quotabut was accompanied by a guidance that was required to make sure it was used to rebuild the counselling support. We need some room to make sure that we are guided by the expertise in this area, but I fully sympathise with the objectives both of Deputy Nolan and Deputy Byrne who have raised this issue consistently.

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