Annie Hoey (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I rise to argue for the need of students to be prioritised in Government discussions on the cost of living. Students have been at the coalface of the rental crisis for years with some now paying into the thousands or, even more tragically, living in homelessness while trying to get their qualifications. I was glad to hear that the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Deputy Harris, will bring proposals to the Cabinet on the cost of fees but we must be honest and say that the road ran out a long time ago on the funding crisis in higher education. The Cassells report, published in 2016, which I have mentioned before in this Chamber, has provided us with a pathway for an education system that is fully publicly funded and free at the point of entry. It is beyond time we implemented those recommendations.

Furthermore, while the Government considers how to mitigate the cost of living, it is worth remembering that students are some of the most poorly paid workers in Ireland and usually occupy seasonal and precarious jobs. I will not even go into what that sector has looked like over the past two years. My colleague, Deputy Nash, rightly spoke yesterday about the need for a living wage in Ireland. Our students are desperately in need of same. I ask the Deputy Leader of the House to invite the Minister, Deputy Harris, to this Chamber to discuss the future funding for higher education and how we are going to take care of our students struggling with the cost of living. Now that we have a full, dedicated seat at Cabinet for further and higher education, I see no reason why they should not be given due priority and consideration.

I will also take a moment to reflect on something that came up yesterday at the Sub-Committee on Mental Health. We were having a discussion with GPs and the topic of the prescribing of medication for mental health came up. A GP told an anecdote on the issue. When a friend of hers was in Australia, she was prescribing medication in approximately 30% of the cases of people who came to her with mental health issues. In Ireland, the same doctor is prescribing in nearly 100% of cases. That is because the requisite resources for talk therapies or social prescribing are not available to GPs at primary care level. That was shocking. I asked if GPs are overly relying on prescribing because there are no other resources available to them at primary care level. There was a conversation in that committee meeting on the topic, and I encourage Senators to listen back to it. It is a bad indictment of our healthcare system and our mental health system, in particular, that GPs are left with no option but to rely solely on medication to treat people when we all know of, and all evidence points to, the need for a combination of talk therapies, medicines, treatments and a whole suite of things we know will have a benefit for people who are suffering with mental health issues. I ask the Acting Leader to invite the relevant Minister to the House for a debate on our mental health services, particularly in a primary care setting. The whole thing is scandalous. I was shocked to hear a GP say that GPs have no choice and prescribing medication is the only way they can take care of their patients.