Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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874. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the estimated full-year cost of increasing mental health supports on campuses to ensure one counsellor per 1,000 students; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35665/25]

James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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As autonomous bodies the internal disbursement of funding, including the funding of student services and mental health supports, is a matter for the individual institution. As such, it is not possible to provide the Deputy with actual costings to reduce the student to counsellor ratio as all higher education institutions are autonomous bodies and may have different methods of providing counselling services.

In relation to the ratio cited (1 counsellor to 1000 students), according to International Accreditation of Counselling Services (IACS) international best practice suggests that higher education institutions should have a ratio of one F.T.E. professional staff member (excluding trainees) to every 1,000 to 1,500 students. However, the IACS Standards for University and College Counselling Services do not suggest that student to counsellor ratios are the optimal way to measure ability to provide adequate levels of mental health supports to students. An ongoing review of the National Student Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Framework by the HEA has identified that in an Irish context there remains a need to develop an appropriate indicator to measure ability to provide adequate levels of mental health supports to students in Irish Higher Education. Following this review, the Framework will be revised in consultation with the HEA Student and Staff Health and Wellbeing Advisory Group. This revision of the Framework will include the identification of robust and meaningful indicators that can measure quality of provision and the ability of HEIs to provide adequate levels of mental health supports to students.

I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.