Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)

I agree with the Deputy regarding the importance of being able to support young people early, especially where we know issues are emerging. It is crucial, most importantly, to the young people, but also to our society as a whole. I agree with the Deputy as well that it is important that in the evaluation, we are looking at the work of those in strands 1 and 2, but perhaps also at how they are also working with other organisations. I will check to see that this is a part of the evaluation because it is really important all the different strands, organisations and agencies are working together and collaborating insofar as possible. This is certainly something I will do.

This is a pilot for our primary schools but important work is also happening in our second schools as well and this is something that is more nationwide. In addition to the counselling pilot, my Department, in partnership with Jigsaw, which we all know is an extremely important organisation in our communities, has a national programme of mental health and well-being resources and training for post-primary schools known as Neart. It is being rolled out. I only officially launched it at the beginning of my term - I think it was in March or April. At that stage already, because it had been available to schools, there was a really high take-up by schools. In one of the schools in my area, I was able to see the benefits it has had already where students engaged with the programme and who were then able to give peer-to-peer support - transition year students with first year students. A great deal of good work is happening and we obviously want to see this expanded.

See this speech in context