Dr. Susan Finnerty:

The Senator asked about a position where there is no CAMHS consultant in a certain area but there is one ten miles down the road, for example. There have been some difficulties over the past few years filling posts for CAMHS consultants, and there have been occasions when in certain areas there has not been a consultant available to provide a service. Sometimes they will cross over from another area or community healthcare organisation to try to pick up any of the emergency cases. I know CHO 5 ran into some difficulties with that and the services from other areas went through the waiting list, with urgent cases being seen and so on. That was not ideal at all and the difficulty was in recruiting a consultant psychiatrist. The posts had been approved. Dr. McDaid has done some work on the topic of non-Irish patients.