Mr. Paul Longmore:

If I may answer the Deputy's question also, in terms of Jigsaw specifically, while we saw a brief initial dip in the level of referrals around the end of March, since April the level of referral has been rising steadily and is now at the same level it would have been last year. It remains to be seen if it continues to increase. Of note is that there is an increased level of referral among young adults. We are a little unusual in Jigsaw in that we work with 12 to 25 year olds so we are seeing an increase in the level of referral from young people around the ages of 18 to 20. That could be because many of those young people may have been affected by the loss of jobs as they would often be working in sectors that have been particularly affected such as the hospitality industry, retail, etc.

One fact that we know about demand is that even pre-Covid-19 the demand for mental health services for young people far exceeded the capacity within the system. We can only anticipate that that will be exacerbated post Covid-19 but in some ways we already know that we do not have enough capacity within the system. That is something we knew in January, February and early March of this year and it remains to be seen to what extent those difficulties and that lack of capacity is exacerbated by Covid-19.