James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)

Wexford General Hospital is a separate issue to psychiatric services, which are being re-organised in the south east and Wexford in particular. As I noted in my original reply, it is important to site services as close to patients as possible and to this end the development of a community psychiatric service is well advanced. A crisis house will be open 24 hours per day, seven days per week and a psychiatric service will be made available in the community with the back-up of consultant psychiatrists. The local psychiatric teams have been engaged in the design and implementation of this service, which is only proper, and patients will receive a much better service than the one described by the Deputy. That is the way forward.

I defer to the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, who has responsibility for this area but both consumers and providers of the service have indicated their preference for proceeding in the direction of more services and treatments in the community and less stigmatisation.

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