Róisín Garvey (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for attending. He is a busy man with a lot going on. I have worked with young people for approximately 25 years and I have a 22-year-old son. What I keep coming across is young people's passion for everything and anything. I am struck by the diversity of young people and all the different things they bring to the table. I started visiting a couple of schools recently. Sometimes they are so refreshing compared to the adults because they have a can-do attitude. They do not see the obstacles. They think "Why can't you just do this?" It is really refreshing to see that they focus on solutions. It is great to remind ourselves that we must keep looking for solutions. To that end, I would point to a few matters that have struck me about secondary school environments. It is unfair that practical subjects are not taught in every school. That means the academics only get to use one part of the their brain and miss out on practical staff and people who are not as academic do not have the opportunity to do well.

My nephew is doing his leaving certificate. He is a very clever guy. He will have four or five of his subjects almost half done before he sits down. I remember when I was doing my leaving certificate the fact that I had five years' work to be tested in three hours was nerve-racking for the entirety of my secondary school existence. We need to examine that area. The leaving certificate examination programme does not fit anybody, even if the authorities think it suits the academics. Just because one gets six A1s does not mean one is a happy camper and enjoyed one's time in secondary school.

The issue of apprenticeships is major. They should not start in January. It is as though there is a stigma attached to them. Those taking up an apprentice find that they finish school and all their mates have gone to college but they have to wait around and go on the dole until January. It is major issue that applicants must be in receipt of social welfare for a good six months before they can take up an apprenticeship. We need to examine that.

I met a women with a good project called Elder Home Share when I got to the finals of a social entrepreneurs workshop. She matched young people with old people. In Ennistymon, there is 48% single occupancy of the houses and such single occupancy would be found in many towns and cities. People who live on their own might, if there was proper Garda vetting, share their home with a young person. The woman who has that project has a good system where she matches old people with young people who find cheap accommodation and the old people feel safe at night. There is much we are can do in that area.

I must talk about mental health services. Prevention is better than cure. My son and his friend made a very important point about this issue. My son is 22 years of age and finished school a few years ago. I remember he and his friend, Conor, saying they would not be caught dead going into a counsellor's office. If it was mandatory for every student in the school to go to the counsellor's office once for 20 minutes, we would get young people over that threshold and break down that stigma or barrier. That should be mandatory. It concerns young people's mental health. That would help the maintenance of their mental health. That is what we should be doing. Consideration should be given to doing that for the purposes of young people's mental health. It would help if we could get them to understand they need to mind their minds from the beginning, as opposed to thinking they would never reach out for help until they have reached rock bottom.

We should praise the student councils and the students’ unions. It is important they have proper participation from everybody in every grouping. My son got into college through the disability access route to education, DARE. Students' unions are often full of privileged, academic upper middle-class students. Many people in politics have come from those but student councils and students' unions should be more diverse and represent all the different people who get into college.