Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for his question. I do have a concern about child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS. The waiting list is currently about 2,200 children. As the Deputy will know, working with the Minister, I managed to secure an extra €50 million in funding in the recent budget of which €38 million are new moneys for new supports. Of the money that has been secured for 2021, there will be 20 new wholetime-equivalent staff hired for CAMHS hubs and teams to try to reduce these waiting lists. As I said earlier, I travelled to County Galway last week to see the fantastic set-up they have in Galway, Mayo and Roscommon. They have community teams, an inpatient unit in Merlin Park University Hospital and they also have a day hospital. They run it very well with very few on the waiting list. I stayed there for half a day to try to get my head around how well the system is running. The committee can be assured that it is a huge priority for me and the Minister. We have discussed it at length. I am hopeful that these 29 extra staff will have a huge impact on the waiting list. As we all know, early intervention is key and all parents want is for their children to be assessed as soon as possible and to get the right wraparound supports they need.