Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate Deputy Fitzpatrick for asking questions. There were a good many but, nevertheless, they all were questions.

I will start with the child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, Senator van Turnhout raised. I will ask Mr. Stephen Mulvany to come in on mental health. In terms of CAMHS, and the service available to children, it is not the same all over the country. It is not uniform. That is something we need to do.

Also, we are dissatisfied with whether it is up to age of 16 or 18 in law. Of course, one is a child until one is 18 years of age and, therefore, one would expect all the statutory services to comply with that legal definition. We are working on that as well.

We need to look at a transition aspect in terms of those who conclude at 18 years and must transition into the adult service. It is not right that someone at 18 years of age falls off the cliff and goes into the adult service even though in some instances in some areas the adult service can be better than the child and adolescent service. It is something we are looking at seriously.

We have a difficulty in terms of recruitment. It has come up in other areas as well, that one simply does not have persons with the expertise we are looking for available when one needs them. I will let Mr. Mulvany deal with that. It is a matter of trying to put in place a system that is uniform throughout the country. Whether one is in Donegal or Dingle, access should be the same and the service should be the same. Hopefully, we will have better outcomes as well. We are working on that.

I would agree entirely with Deputy Neville. When it comes to mental health, we must defer to him. Deputy Neville was talking about mental health when it was neither profitable nor fashionable. I always defer to him on these matters.

ReachOut took a long time to put together, as did, to a great extent, A Vision for Change. We are conscious of the fact that it is coming to the end of its life and that, maybe, we need to put a structure in place not to take a look at what is beyond A Vision for Change and what is beyond ReachOut, and whether ReachOut is working. Are we doing the right things? I will ask Mr. Mulvany to refer to that.

In terms of the recruitment, there have been stops and starts, but we are well on track. As I stated earlier, those who are already working in the system are as important as the new staff we will recruit. We need to ensure that they can work as a team, which does not always come naturally. We have set some funding aside to ensure that teams work in a productive fashion.

In response to Deputy Fitzpatrick, I will ask Mr. Pat Healy to deal with the additional funding for disabilities and the €4 million on the nought to 18s, which we see as a crucial element in terms of disability. We do not want those at the 18 years of age stage coming out of the childhood services and falling off the cliff. I am not certain that one can call it a crisis if one knows it is coming. We want to ensure that such does not happen.

We have separated out funding from the fair deal scheme to look at exactly the issues in regard to older persons of which the Deputy spoke. I am not certain that anyone sitting around this room wants to end his or her days in a nursing home, no matter how pleasant or kind staff are. Some people do not have a choice in that regard where it is the only option available. If all of the research tells us that each of us would prefer to die not only in our home but, if not, in our community, then we are looking at how we will manage that better, and this is the first year that we have taken steps in that direction. What we are doing is what we have talked about for so long. We are now, I suppose, financially, and with the finances, physically, moving in the direction we want to be.