Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The Taoiseach said that the Cabinet committee was concerned with the well-being of children. I wonder has he considered two things in respect of our National Educational Psychological Service. The child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, suggests a damning situation in respect of the treatment of young people with mental health issues and so on. There is a big overlap between that issue and the need for proper psychological services in schools. Such services are already considerably under-resourced and understaffed. There is a particular lack of psychologists. Children who are fleeing war and the children of refugees are often already traumatised and are then moved around from school to school and area to area when they need stability. We need psychological services and supports for those children. At every level, we need to up our game considerably in respect of the availability of psychological services. We would ideally have psychologists in every school. We make it incredibly difficult for people to qualify as educational psychologists because of extortionate fees.

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