Dr. Niall Muldoon:

From a business point of view I have consistently asked the Minister for Health and the Minister of State with responsibility for mental health and older people how much is spent in the area of children's mental health. We can tell that the mental health budget is close to €1 billion in general but not how much is spent on children in particular. We know that 75% of all adult psychiatric issues start in childhood. No business is set up without knowing what is being spent, where it is being spent and where better resources can be allocated. When the Irish College of General Practitioners met in another committee with the Chair, they spoke about the need for demographic allocation and disadvantage needs to be considered there. There is a better way of doing that with the limited resources, namely to find out where the need is greatest and the south east seems to have jumped to the top of that queue but there are other areas that need better allocation. There is a way of improving the system but we need to start with the basic question of how much we spend on it. That needs to increase. We know it is only 6% of our national budget and the European average is around 12%. We are way behind on that. We know the money is not enough if the recruitment is not done properly. Other areas that Ms Brennan mentioned where we could recruit are play, art and drama therapists and other such people who are in professions that have only come on the scene in the last ten to 15 years. Many of them now have proper oversight and regulations. They could help us in the areas of primary care and we need to look at the more serious levels as well.