Averil Power (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister to the Chamber for the second time in two days. We are very privileged and we hope we will see him frequently in the future.

I thank the Independent Senators for tabling such an important motion. Last week, the Minister published a consultation report on young people's views of the junior certificate programme. In that report the social personal and health education, SPHE, programme was one of the issues on which they placed most stress. They said they wanted more and better SPHE classes to cover more areas. When asked which subjects they felt should be compulsory at junior certificate level they cited SPHE, civic, social and political education, CSPE, English and mathematics. Of those subjects, the first is very personal and the second relates to politics and society. It is interesting that when young people were asked what skills they needed for 21st century Ireland, these are the ones they identified. It is excellent that our focus this evening is on such an important area.

Other speakers have referred to the value of a broad education, which is something about which I feel strongly. In today's world, it is important that we equip young people, not only academically but also with the personal and social skills they need to be happy, particularly during their adolescence but also as adults, to become caring and responsible members of society and to develop confidence and self-esteem. The SPHE curriculum has an important role to play in this.

It is also important for young people to become more aware of the importance of mental health and to be prepared to reach out and ask for help if they have a problem. President McAleese recently opened the forum, "Working Together for Positive Youth Mental Health" and Senator McAleese opened this evening's debate. The motion refers to that forum. We owe a debt to Donal Óg Cusack, who spoke at the opening of the forum about how difficult it was for him to come out and to deal with his sexuality as a younger person.

The Minister recently launched guidelines on homophobic bullying in schools. That is an equally important initiative. We must have an effective strategy to deal with bullying in all its forms. However, the instances of homophobic bullying are much more frequent than bullying in general. Speakers have spoken of the preparedness of teachers to deal with issues that come up in schools. At the launch of the guidelines, the Minister referred to young people's instancing inappropriate comments by teachers as having hurt them more than comments by their peers. This is central to this debate. We must make sure that adults in schools are equipped to deal with issues such as sexuality and relationships.

The Government strategy for improving mental health services, A Vision for Change, acknowledges adolescence as a key stage of psychological development, when children require an understanding of the life challenges they face and need to develop basic skills to cope with difficult emotions. We all remember our teenage years. It is a time of increased risk of poor mental health. There is a general anxiety that everyone goes through as a teenager, but some face issues such as depression, eating disorders and body image, which is a constant issue for girls but increasingly for many young men. It is a time of increased risk for young people. Studies have found that one in four Irish teenagers has experienced serious personal, emotional, behavioural or mental health problems and that one in ten has deliberately harmed him or herself. Ireland has one of the highest rates of youth suicide in the European Union. We must redouble our efforts to address this problem, and schools have an important part to play.

It is important that, through the SPHE curriculum, we encourage young people to speak out and ask for help if they need it and also that we equip them with the skills they need to identify friends who are at risk, spot warning signs and know the agencies where help might be available.

Other Members discussed the patchy implementation of the SPHE and RSE programmes. I know the Minister is carrying out reviews of every school subject and that schools often complain about an overcrowded curriculum. I return to the fact that young people themselves emphasised the importance of these areas, of all the subjects they are being taught. Senator Mac Conghail referred to the 2007 report and the implementation of the RSE programme in the context of SPHE. I hope the Minister will tell us, in his concluding remarks, if there has been any improvement in the areas that were identified in that report as problematic. I refer to the problems of teachers feeling uncomfortable teaching the programme, the fact that not all schools offer the subject in the first year and even fewer in the later years and the role of the inspectorate. Some schools felt that inspectors do not place an emphasis on the programmes when doing whole-school evaluations. I ask the Minister to give the House an update on that report.