Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Turning to an earlier discussion I have just had to leave to take a phone call and I had a quick squint at the newspapers. It appears that the operation for the young woman who was on "The Late Late Show", Megan Halvey-Ryan, due for 9 March, has now been cancelled as confirmed by her mother Sharon. I wonder about the extent to which we are in a room listening to figures - and with respect, some of these figures are vague - when real life is what happens outside of here while we are all busy analysing the figures. No amount of analysis will restore the confidence of that young woman in our health services. She was packing her bag to come to Dublin, her mum said. I was reading the article as I came down to the committee room in the lift. We need to address if there is a disconnect between what is said as an aspiration and what actually happens. I was very distressed to hear that her operation , which was due on 9 March, has now been cancelled. This touches on what we spoke of earlier but it is what is actually happening on the aspirations and everything else.

With regard to the child and adolescent mental health services, does the Minster have a figure for how many children are currently in adult units, which are called inappropriate settings, and does he have a plan to get them out from those units to put them where they should be? If the Minister does have a plan, perhaps he could identify where the costs and money for that have been allocated. I was in Sligo on Monday and I spoke to some parents who are having first-hand dealings with the child and adolescent mental health services. Actually, let me put that correctly - they would love to be having first-hand dealings with the child and adolescent mental health services but instead they are on lists. They tell me also that the list has closed and effectively no new people are being added. I note that in the report we can see the number of child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, referrals seen by the mental health services where one can see this figure is about to go up or is projected to go up. The people I spoke with last week are not even on a list. Does the Minister have figures for how many people try to access the CAMHS service but cannot make it onto a list? If we look at the figures for psychiatry for old age we can see figures for the percentage of accepted referrals, re-referrals, offers of first appointment, etc. There is a lot more detail there. I might have a view as to why there is not much detail about the CAMHS but maybe we could get that same level of detail because it would give us an accurate picture. I can see the percentages are there in the report but we do not have actual figures for how many children are waiting, how many children are referred and not seen and how many children have not yet managed to get onto a list.

I try not to be, but if I may I will be just a little parochial and ask about my area. It is my understanding from parliamentary questions I have asked that a business case for a psychologist in the north Dublin area is being put forward and that the business case has been put forward twice. We have the fastest growing population in the State and the highest number of young people per head of population in the State, yet we cannot access a child psychologist for the CAMHS service. This seems very wrong to me. It goes back to the issue of staffing and the crossover with the budget, and from the figures I can see the projected increase in the children using the services. Does the Minister have a clear sight as to how this correlates to additional staff? Perhaps he could give us a breakdown of the grades, groups and categories of staff involved, and if it is intended to purchase any services from the private sector, for how many hours and for what types of services.