Marcella Corcoran Kennedy (Offaly, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chair and the Ministers and officials for coming in this afternoon.

Most of my questions are addressed to Minister of State, Deputy Daly. We had Dr. Harry Barry in here last week and there has been a lot of discussion around social media and gaming addiction, which is now recognised as a condition by the World Health Organization. He made an interesting proposal that there should be a national protocol on the use of social media, both for youths and for adults. I know the Minister had some very strong concerns around the use of mobile phones, and that is an area that the Minister is continuing to explore, because it strikes me that we are now in 2018 and if we roll back eight years to 2010, the use of social media has exploded in the last number of years. It is having an enormous impact on the mental health of both young and old alike in this country, and I believe globally. Is that an area on which the Minister is now focusing because of his own particular interest?

The other question relates to the use or lack of use of the psychotherapists in our system. We had the psychotherapists' representative organisation in here and they said 1,500 people were available who they felt were not utilised enough. I was curious about the fact that the National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS, was saying that they did not have psychotherapists and that they only had psychiatrists and psychologists in NEPS; and did not see a need for psychotherapists. Once it passed through the psychiatrists it went to the health service. I wondered if there was a break between education and health and whether there should there be a closer relationship there: does the Minister think that this is something we should be focusing on?

Another matter is more local, and is similar to CAMHS in Cherrywood, in relation to the criteria that CHO 8 used to justify the withdrawal of services to the young adult mental health service there, which is solely focusing on the 16 to18 year olds. I happened to call in, as we are calling in to our various CAMHS, and learned they had recently received word that they were going to be withdrawing the positions of the psychotherapist, two nurses, an administrator, and also an art therapist. The reason for this is that they were nearly too successful. I thought the model that they had, which was focusing on 16 to 18 year olds, is something that should be replicated across the country because they have no waiting lists.

In my view they are being penalised by the HSE for being successful. I am very concerned. They were able to deal with the emergencies that would arise because they did not have the waiting lists. They were able to manage all of this. Can I ask what the Minister's view is on this and the fact that they are also citing A Vision for Change figures? Those figures are way out of date, so I cannot accept that they are using A Vision for Change recommendations to justify making this decision.