Dr. Philip Dodd:

In response to Senator Ó Céidigh's question from a member of the public about making consultant psychiatrists permanent, one of the priorities in the mental health division is to advance any consultants on the specialist register who go through a fair public process to be permanently appointed. Consultant psychiatrists have the best rate of full approval, from the point of budgetary sanction to advertisement for the post on the Public Appointments Service website, than anyone in other areas of the health service. We are doing our absolute best through the rapid recruitment of consultants for that to be achieved.

The health budget of 6% for mental health, by international standards, is low in general. A paper considering the national spend on mental health services in several countries was published this week in the British Journal of Psychiatry. It shows, as we would expect, that the percentage investment in mental health services links directly to health and well-being. Do we need literature to prove that? Maybe not, but we now have a very robust study that would suggest that investment in mental health results in good outcomes for members of our population.

With regard to child psychiatry representation, I am an adult psychiatrist and work with people with intellectual disability. I trained in child psychiatry as well. I am not on the specialist register for child psychiatry but several consultant child psychiatrists work with me. I am absolutely familiar with the challenges in CAMHS. I regularly link with clinical directors in children's services throughout the country. I spoke to Dr. Doody this morning.