Finian McGrath (Dublin North Central, Independent)
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Question 1266: To ask the Minister for Health the reason nearly 250 under 18 year olds are waiting for more than 12 months for mental health services [18312/12]

Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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A Vision for Change identified mental health services for children and young people as a priority area for development. The HSE has therefore placed a particular emphasis on developing child and adolescent mental health teams, improving in-patient access, addressing waiting times for assessment and progress has been made in recent years. In 2009 the HSE established the multidisciplinary Specialist Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services Advisory Group. The Group has now developed a minimum dataset for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) and a suite of key performance indicators linked to the dataset that takes into account resource allocation and other factors. Targeted efforts have been made to reduce the waiting list and I note that the waiting list for children waiting over 12 months reduced by almost 29% between December 2010 and December 2011.

During 2012 the capacity of the CAMHS will be expanded, as part of the special funding of €35m provided for mental health in Budget 2012 will be used to strengthen CAMHS teams by ensuring, at a minimum, that at least one of each mental health professional discipline is represented on every team. This will enable the CAMHS to continue to reduce the overall waiting list and it is hoped that by the end of 2012, no child will be waiting longer than 12 months for an appointment.