What the data says about student mental health in Ireland

Most conversations about student mental health in Ireland lean on a small number of studies. Each one is useful. Each one also has limits that tend to get dropped when a figure is repeated in a headline. This post sets out what the main sources actually measured, who they asked, and what they can and cannot tell a counselling service planning for the year ahead.

The USI national report (survey run in 2018)

The USI National Report on Student Mental Health in Third Level Education, published in August 2019, surveyed 3,340 students between January and April 2018 through local students' unions. It used the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS).

Its headline findings were that 38.4% of respondents scored in the extremely severe range for anxiety, 29.9% for depression and 17.3% for stress (the foreword gives 17.2%). Just under a third (32.2%) had received a formal mental health diagnosis at some point, and a fifth (20.9%) said they had no one to talk to about personal and emotional difficulties. Over 23% had used their on-campus counselling service.

The caveat matters: the response rate was 0.89% across the island, and 1.4% in the Republic. People who choose to answer a mental health survey are not a random sample of students, so these figures describe the respondents, not the whole student population.

My World Survey 2 (2019)

My World Survey 2, from UCD School of Psychology and Jigsaw, heard from more than 19,000 people aged 12 to 25. Among young adults in third-level education or employment, the proportion reporting anxiety rose from 15% in the 2012 survey to 26% in 2019.

A follow-up analysis of the third-level sample (Mahon and colleagues, Irish Journal of Psychological Medicine) looked at 9,935 students from 12 institutions. Undergraduates reported higher levels of depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicidal ideation than postgraduates, and students at Institutes of Technology reported more depression and anxiety than university students. The authors are clear about selection bias: response rates were 10.6% in universities and 2.2% in Institutes of Technology.

Eurostudent VIII (2022)

The HEA's Eurostudent VIII report, published in April 2023, is the largest recent source, with more than 21,000 students surveyed in 2022. It is not a mental health survey as such, but it asks the right adjacent questions.

About 32% of students reported a disability or long-standing health problem, up from 25% in the previous round, and mental health problems were the most commonly reported category. Among full-time undergraduates, 19% reported a mental health problem. Around a third reported serious or very serious financial problems, up from 26%.

On services, 62% of students had heard of mental health counselling at their institution, while a quarter had never heard of it. Of those who had used it, 61% rated it helpful or very helpful.

The European topical report on well-being from the same round (Cuppen, Muja and Geurts, 2024) used the WHO-5 well-being index. Across countries, between 37% and 58% of students had poor well-being. Ireland, at 57%, was near the top of that range, alongside Portugal.

Demand on counselling services

National figures on counselling use are harder to find than survey data. Psychological Counsellors in Higher Education in Ireland (PCHEI) has collected sector statistics since 1996. As reported in 2019, PCHEI data showed almost 12,000 students sought counselling in the previous academic year, roughly double the 2010 figure. Anxiety accounted for half of referrals. There was one counsellor for every 2,600 students, against a recommended ratio of one per 1,000 to 1,500, and waits ranged from 7 to 40 working days depending on the college.

Newer figures are on the way. A National Student Counselling Service Dataset, building on the PCHEI survey, collects pseudonymised data including presenting concerns, with institutions such as TU Dublin contributing from September 2024.

Where policy has got to

The HEA's National Student Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Framework was launched on 10 October 2020. Its review report, published in July 2025, drew on progress reports from 16 institutions. Across them, 56% of framework actions were reported as achieved or ongoing, 38% in progress, 5% in planning and 1% with no progress. Publicly funded institutions have received €5m a year for student mental health and wellbeing supports since 2020.

Two findings stand out for service leads. First, the review notes that implementation "has primarily fallen to student counselling services to date", whose clinical staff are "already working at full capacity". Second, it recommends agreeing meaningful, measurable indicators to track progress, which is a polite way of saying the sector cannot yet show impact consistently.

Reading the data carefully

A few patterns hold across sources: anxiety is the most prominent concern, undergraduates and some access-route and minority groups report more difficulty, and money worries are common. Beyond that, the figures are hard to compare. The surveys use different measures (DASS, WHO-5, self-reported disability), different samples and low or uneven response rates. Much of the detailed Irish data was collected before or during the pandemic. Words like "crisis" do little to help here; what the evidence supports is sustained, measurable demand that services are meeting with stretched capacity.

What this means for counselling services

Treat survey percentages as signals about respondents, not prevalence rates for your student body.
Your own routine data, gathered consistently with validated measures, is likely to be more useful for planning than any national headline. Contributing to the national dataset strengthens everyone's picture.
The HEA review's call for measurable indicators is a chance to agree, locally, what you will count and why, before someone else decides for you.
Awareness is still a gap: a quarter of students in 2022 had never heard of mental health counselling at their institution.

If you're struggling: Samaritans 116 123, text 50808, or 112/999 in an emergency.