Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein)
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295. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the mental health and counselling positions in the secondary level education system; and the annual cost; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34278/17]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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Guidance is a whole school activity and schools have autonomy on how best to prioritise their available resources to meet the requirements in relation to guidance and the provision of an appropriate range of subjects to students. This operates at local school level and therefore the information requested by the Deputy on the number of guidance counsellors in post primary schools is not available centrally within my Department.

The Action Plan for Education 2016-2019 has a specific action to enhance guidance counselling at second-level as resources permit.  Measures announced by my Department as part of Budget 2016 and 2017 mean that 400 guidance posts, or two thirds of the guidance allocation that was withdrawn in Budget 2012, will be restored to schools from September 2017. 

All of these 400 posts are allocated separately and transparently on the normal staffing schedule of posts for schools. The restoration of these posts will allow each school to determine how best to allocate the additional resources to meet the guidance needs of the school in accordance with the School's Guidance Plan. 

The cost of restoring the remaining posts is in the region of €13m.  This will be considered in the context of future Budgets, however there are needs across the system which have to be balanced in the decisions made in each budget.

Measures announced by my Department as part of Budget 2016 and 2017 mean that 400 guidance posts, or two thirds of the guidance allocation that was withdrawn in Budget 2012, will be restored to schools from September 2017.  All of these 400 posts are allocated separately and transparently on the normal schedule of posts.  

The restoration of the remaining posts will be considered in future Budgets.