Joan Freeman (Independent) | Oireachtas source

It was good to hear the Minister welcoming a dialogue between Deputies and Senators. It is important she hears what the issues are at ground level.

One issue which deeply concerns me, one which I will be focusing on for the next year, is mental health for children and adolescents. It is quite obvious that child psychiatry is dying. We often talk about waiting lists for CAMHS, child and adolescent mental health services, or children looking for assessment. Many of these children have serious issues such as eating disorders or suicidal ideation. Not only are they quite serious issues, they are life-threatening ones.

When the Taoiseach spoke to the Seanad for two hours last week, not once did he mention mental health. It was all about Brexit and the relationship between Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. Once again, mental health is the poor cousin. Every Government has ignored the issues which concern mental health. When I say child psychiatry is dying, I literally mean it. We have assessment teams which are unable to assess because there is no psychiatrist in place. The main problem is that our graduates are facing a salary which is half what it would be elsewhere in the world while working double the time. No wonder we have nobody to replace psychiatrists who are leaving the system.

We can talk about this forever. We can talk about bringing budgets and including more moneys into salaries. The people are not there, however, to do that because they are not interested. We do not make it an attractive country in which to work in psychiatry.

I believe unused moneys are returned to the Department each year. Will there be moneys returned this year? If so, how much? Can we use these moneys to come up with an immediate reactionary action plan to deal with these child psychiatry waiting lists and to look at the potential of PICUS, psychiatric intensive care units?

This is something to which I will dedicate my time here. I will continue to talk about this until somebody eventually listens. I hope the Minister might be that person.