Ms Lauren Keogh:

I will try to keep my remarks concise. I totally agree with Ms Dalton that outsourcing is a huge expense compared to employing a fully-staffed team to deal with the backlog. The money could be pumped it into early intervention. The problem is that there are barely any resources for early intervention and that is leading to a crisis situation. We need to be proactive, not reactive. As I mentioned, there should be investment into teaching children and parents how to implement coping skills. It is easy to sit around talking about it, and all present know what coping skills are, but finding ways to implement them when needed is more difficult.

It is important not to waste time on big ideas. The stuff in the strategic plan for my area for 2017 is so unrealistic. Its first goal is to promote health and well-being as part of everything we do in order that people will be healthier. The third goal is to foster a culture that is honest, compassionate, transparent and accountable. Those goals are currently far out of reach. They need to be realistic. Money needs to go into delivering what people need now, getting the backlog up to date and then looking at how waste can be eliminated. I do not know if any members know about lean six sigma training. As I said, there is a training course in that on Groupon for €26 that could make such a difference to the HSE. It does not have to cost money.

In terms of what should be told to Tusla and CAMHS, the first issue is that they need to be fully staffed, although that is more the function of the HSE. Once that is in place, the organisations need to listen to parents and take accountability. Tusla's child protection function has been shown to be deficient in several cases, with parents providing the only functional child protection. Services need to be interlinked. People cannot be passed from CAMHS to a disability team and then have to wait for another two and a half years. That is not good enough. The lack of interlinked services is creating a crisis.

I knew about mental health services because I had experience of mental health issues as an adult. For children, I have no idea. I thought it was brilliant when we got a letter saying that my daughter had been put on a waiting list because she had anorexia and was suicidal but we were then told there would be a further wait of 18 months. I was not prepared for that. I thought that my daughter would not still be with me in 18 months' time. She had not eaten for four days by the time we went to get this letter saying she was on a priority waiting list. I hope that answers everything. I hope it helps.