Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

-----in order to represent my constituents at least as well as other people tend to do.

I do not believe that all the people with severe child mental health issues come to me. I have four on my list and I am dealing with them daily. I am not dealing with them very satisfactorily because they are frustrated. In the past couple of weeks one of the four got on to a programme which was necessary. In one case the child severely injured themselves and was referred to an accident and emergency department. They had to wait all day in the accident and emergency department from 8 a.m. until night and had to come in the following morning again. This is where we need to marry up the services. It should have been possible for somebody somehow somewhere to identify the child as an urgent case. The child, who had suffered a really serious injury, should have been taken out of the queue and put somewhere else to be dealt with. I am asking for a close examination of the child and adolescent mental health services with a view to addressing the issues that arise regularly. Some of them are life-threatening and can cause danger to the child and other family members, and danger to staff as time goes on.

We should find out from all hospitals where there is overcrowding at accident and emergency departments if any wards are closed or if any spaces are available in the hospital that can be utilised as wards and opened as a means of allowing a smooth throughput of patients.