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

I will reply to some of the outstanding questions asked by Deputy Ó Caoláin on the CAMHS service. I am not certain we will ever reach the point where a service of this nature, that deals with very vulnerable children and their families, is perfect but we are doing a variety of things. Targeted interventions will happen and we are going to build up services in primary care, including funding two additional Jigsaw projects, one in Cork city and one in the very centre of Dublin city. These projects will ensure the service does not always have to rely on intensive, acute units such as CAMHS. CAMHS is spread across a huge area but when we started to look at the list we discovered there were a lot of young people on that list who were referred by the National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS, for a diagnosis of their educational needs. There is a mix.

One of the questions related to psychotropic drugs and young people. There is a safety element in CAMHS in so far as only a psychiatrist can prescribe and we should be very careful not to lose that element. We are determined that those who need child and adolescent mental health services will be the people in the service while we will provide services to those others who do not need the same level of intervention. The two new Jigsaw projects will be pivotal in all that and building up psychology and counselling services in primary care will equally contribute to ensure not everything is left to CAMHS, which would be unfair. We will bring counselling and psychology services through primary care to people under 18 and this will also be hugely important.