Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

My time is brief and I will refer back to Dr. Doody on the Cork facility at a future date as there are further questions to be asked about it to shed light on, and understand better, the dynamics that inform the running of the facility. There have been legitimate questions in the past about the culture that exists there.

There are 130 individuals waiting more than 18 months for CAMHS assessments in my neck of the woods. If I am reading information relating to interventions correctly, and without putting words in anybody's mouth, the term "resources" is the key. It is preventing children and families in my area from receiving proper assessments. I understand there is a multidisciplinary team and that there are constraints with regard to recruitment and so forth. Has the HSE examined the multidisciplinary team model with regard to reducing the numbers on the waiting lists in such a way as to redeploy resources from other areas or through outside recruitment on short-term contracts or by ensuring that with proper supervision it might not necessarily have to be a psychiatrist who would make the initial assessment and it could be somebody else under the supervision of a psychiatrist?

The bottom line is that the families I know must be able to get assessments. If we are talking about staving off problems down the line, as Deputy Lisa Chambers mentioned, intervention at the earliest stage is required. That is self-evident, and I am not a physician. It can prevent many problems down the line. Are more imaginative solutions being considered at present to ensure we can get the waiting list down in spite of the capacity and resource constraints?