Mr. Liam Woods:

Recruitment of perinatal psychiatrists is challenging. The Deputy is correct in saying that we are limited to the three part-time Dublin-based posts. As we said on our opening statement, we have funding to recruit additional psychiatrists. That will be a challenge. In the mental health services at large that has been a significant issue. We have had more success in recruiting psychiatrists in the acute area than we have into the community. We hope that we can use that to advantage in terms of attracting people back. I would not underestimate or understate the challenge.

The Deputy referred to A Vision for Change, monitoring against a plan, a roadmap for success, timescales, deliverables and reporting against that. The national women's and infants programme within the HSE service plan is monitoring the implementation of these developments. Some of them will also fall to be considered within the mental health division of the HSE. There is a process for that and we report on it. The Department of Health holds the HSE to account for our implementation of new services when new funding is provided. That is typically reported on within our published reports that we put online quarterly. We also report back to the Oireachtas committees and elsewhere. There is a process in place to monitor implementation and that is clear. I would not underestimate the challenge. It is something we have in place and we hope to progress that.

Recruiting any consultant is typically a 12-month journey. A fair amount of effort is required to attract consultants back. It is about attracting back consultants. Typically that will happen over 12 months. There are processes in place for that. We have increased the overall consultant number. The number in the acute division is up by about 59 year-on-year at the moment. We have a process. We will have to run that and see where it brings us - hopefully it will be successful.

Regarding capacity, as I said at the end of the statement, the HSE, as with any service, will respond to legislation in terms of scaling service requirement and costing that and submitting such costing and service requirements to the Department of Health based on a model of care as and when that is required. That is our normal business and we would do that.

The HSE already has extensive training in place across a range of services. We would simply need to expand to cover these particular issues.