Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Dr. McDaid for her presentation. She has outlined it as it is. There are clearly grave challenges in terms of funding. We must accept that governments need to work within certain parameters. For many years mental health was described as the Cinderella of health services. There was clearly insufficient commitment in any programme for government to ensure there was enough funding. When we saw the cutbacks even though there was ring-fencing of funding it was only ring-fencing in name and did not really translate into guaranteed committed funding year-on-year. Obviously we have seen the exodus of health professionals over recent years creating further problems. That is the backdrop to where we are in terms of trying to provide mental health services in our communities throughout the country.

Dr. McDaid referred to child and adolescent mental health services. Many adolescents are still being admitted to adult units even though we all know it is wrong from a clinical point of view as well as from the point of view of an individual's rights and entitlements. Have we made much progress in that area? I know there are ongoing developments. Have we gone much further down that road to ensure that we do not have adolescents attending adult psychiatric units, for example, and being admitted to adult psychiatric services?

Some general practitioners have expressed concern to me - as I am sure they have to others - about the new counselling and primary care service. The view appears to be that if we do not address this particular problem quickly the result will be people again being admitted through the emergency departments of our hospitals. Is that something about which the witnesses would be concerned?

It was stated that we have sufficient social workers. There is one area where I believe there may be a break in the chain, namely, secondary school career guidance counsellors. There has been a huge reduction in recent years in the number of guidance counsellors in our schools. Is Mental Health Reform aware of any difficulties in this area? People often say that vulnerable people should be seen by a general practitioner. A vulnerable child whose general practitioner is the family general practitioner may not wish to speak to him or her. Are there other avenues open to vulnerable students, who previously would have spoken to their career guidance counsellor and so on, who may have been camouflaging their difficulties for some time and may not want the family to know about them. In the witnesses' experience, are there any difficulties in this regard?