Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

My colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Jim Daly, will take most of them. I nevertheless wish to comment on a number of them if that is okay with the Chairman.

On the issue the fiscal space and the discussions we have, that is a matter for the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform to determine how that comes out of his allocation. What I am very confident of is that we have a letter from him, which I believe we have already shared with the committee, assuring us that this spending will be there. I can ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform to confer with the committee's spokesperson on that but the main point is that commitment is certainly there.

I look forward to engaging with Deputy O'Loughlin on the education committee. I believe that committee is doing good work on this and we need to dovetail even more on it and I give that commitment.

I also appreciate what the Deputy says about A Vision for Change, which is an important comment. We should not confuse implementation with strategy or plans. The strategy and vision is something we all accept was very good. It is about making sure that we implement it.

On the issue of bed capacity, my colleague, the Minister of State will comment on this but a number of developments already are under way to try to increase bed capacity. Crucially, we now have significant additional funding for more beds right across the spectrum of our health services and shortly, I will ask the hospital groups and community healthcare organisations to identify how many beds are needed in each region across the varied spectrum of healthcare. Rather than being a top-down exercise in which the HSE centrally makes allocations, we will ask people from CHOs and from acute hospitals to identify the number of beds needed.

On the issue of assistant psychologists, again I have given a commitment to the committee to get more information and we will come back on that. This is an area on which I would appreciate the committee's view because if it is an area we believe has benefits, we can try to do more. My understanding from the Minister of State, Deputy Jim Daly, is that a lot of these personnel already are working in the system, as opposed to people taking up additional university places. On telepsychiatry, we have dealt with that and the committee will do some more work in that regard.

Regarding the Mental Health Commission, I agree with Deputy O'Loughlin instinctively, that we should consider increasing its powers and I will give that some further thought. The committee may have noticed that in the patient safety Bill I brought to Cabinet last week, not only will it not be enough to openly disclose - Senator Devine and I discussed this in the Seanad last week - to the patient an issue but there will be an automatic requirement to refer to the Mental Health Commission. Consequently, this commission should have an ability to gather new data that are not gathered today on how many incidents are openly discussed with the patient. It also will enable the commission to see trends and information from right across the mental health service. We are doing something similar for HIQA for our non-mental health services. That will be a new function or ability given to the Mental Health Commission.

In response to Deputy Browne's question, my colleague, the Minister of State has been working on and leading the Government's response to the comments made by the President of the High Court. He will respond to that question as well.

As for the HSE service plan, I have a simple view as Minister for Health in this regard. We provide the HSE with a level of funding for the year and it provides back a service plan which it signs off on and states it will deliver. It has given that commitment that it will deliver that number of CAMHS referrals and interventions this year and I expect them to do that.