Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Many questions were raised. Deputy Collins might remind me if I miss any one of them. The Deputy asked for a "yes" or "no" response on whether €25 million of the €55 million allocation for last year has not been spent. The answer is "no". There is €12 million yet to be spent and there is two plus months of this year remaining to spend it.

I am meeting representatives from the Department and the HSE tomorrow, as I do every couple of months, to review our spending targets and commitments on that front. Another question concerned new development money for Traveller mental health initiatives. I will ask the representatives from the HSE to address that more specifically, but I will state that new development funding is intended to roll out new models of care into communities. Examples would include eating disorders and any model of care for mental health and intellectual disability, MHID. We also have many different programmes for adults and children in communities, and Travellers can access these services and specialist teams.

We view Traveller mental health as something that requires a whole-of-government response. Mental health is a symptom and it has an impact on Travellers and the entirety of the Government has to take responsibility. We could just narrow this issue down, look at it through the prism of mental health and, if it were decided, set up dedicated specialist teams for Travellers' mental health. There are, however, many other minority groups and we cannot establish dedicated teams for each of those. We prefer to see groups established in the community and issues with access being addressed in that way. Those services must be culturally sensitive and there must be culturally-appropriate communications in order that people know how to reach out to and access those services. We prefer that model as opposed to establishing specific services.

Specialist programmes have been set up to address Traveller health. Exchange House Ireland receives about €1 million each year. I understand that programme has helped about 8,000 Travellers. There is also a €10 million programme for promoting Traveller mental health and wellness, in addition to the €500,000 I mentioned already from the Dormant Accounts Fund. Overall, the budget for mental health is more than €1 billion. Some 1,027 different services are available in communities. When I came into this job, I asked how many such services were available and nobody had the answer. I also asked how people knew about the services that existed. That is why the phone line now established in the national ambulance service went live last week. More than 1,000 services in the community are now available and accessible through that one phone number and I want to create awareness of that initiative.

This discussion has to be helpful and focused on improving access to the services available, as opposed to creating individualised services for minority groups. The most important thing is to ensure people can access those services and we must support them in doing so. I already outlined the targeted resources for Travellers. Turning to new development funding for Travellers from 2020, again we are open to suggestions. No one in this room has a monopoly on the wisdom regarding the right thing to do. I certainly do not, so I am very happy to hear any suggestions from this committee on ideas for new developments to support Traveller mental health specifically. I state that because it is a crisis. There is no doubt about that at all and we want to support and assist in addressing this issue in every way possible.