Ms Fiona Coyle:

The Chairman asked about challenges in the delivery of mental health services during the Covid period. A WHO study last year clearly showed that every country has had difficulties in delivering the services it had been delivering prior to the pandemic because there was increased demand and limited delivery due to the Covid-related restrictions.

The Chairman also asked about the impact of redeployment. We do not have an answer, unfortunately, to how many staff have been deployed from mental health services into the Covid response. Numerous parliamentary questions have asked about it but the HSE has not been able to provide us with that information. As representatives of Mental Health Reform, we have some concerns in that regard because we need to know about the current capacity of our health service.

I will ask my colleague, Ms Deane, to talk about young people and some of the other groups the Chairman mentioned.