Mr. Paul Gilligan:

As Ms Gogarty has said, we welcome the opportunity to come here today. Specifically, we welcome the opportunity because we are in the independent sector, which has a very important role to play in trying to resolve what we believe is a crisis in the child and adolescent mental health services. We have kept our submission specific and tried not to be repetitive, but it is worth saying that the solution to the difficulties is a long-term solution. We were asked for honesty and it is important to state that, over a number of years, there has been a lack of investment and a lack of forward planning in child and adolescent mental health services. That is not to criticise everyone. It is impossible to provide a comprehensive service with the sort of budgets that are being allocated. The result is that we have an understaffed service. It is very hard to keep or attract staff. We do not have any 24-7 services, and therefore the bulk of issues arising at weekends and evenings present at general hospitals, to GPs or to those services that are 24-7.

We believe a long-term plan must be put in place that will tackle this issue, specifically the issue of resourcing child and adolescent mental health services. It is at crisis point. We have heard from others about the angst and trauma of having to deal with a child who cannot get a service. We deal with that all the time in the independent sector. Distressed families ring who do not have health insurance and cannot access to independent services or get a service anywhere. We try to help those families to find appropriate services.

Specifically, we believe that a key thing that could be done in the short term would be to establish emergency inpatient assessment units. We believe that it is not ideal to ask families to travel from Waterford to Cork, but given that the bulk of admissions to adult units happens as a result of a lack of services available on a 24-7 basis, unless we can deliver CAMHS 24-7, which will be a medium-term solution, emergency inpatient units would go some way to addressing that specific issue.

We believe that in the medium to long term we need a proper strategy around child and adolescent mental health services. We are signatories to the UN convention. If we do not provide children and adolescents with adequate and timely mental health services, we are not recognising their rights under that convention.