Ms Fiona Coyle:

I am happy to speak very briefly on this. Staffing continues to be one of the biggest challenges our healthcare system faces and within that our mental health care services. The HSE has a workforce plan in place but we know that across the country community mental health teams are not fully staffed and are not at full capacity. There are difficulties in recruiting within specific disciplines. Efforts have been made in recent times. The HSE has invested in the training of psychiatric nurses and that is coming to fruition now. Again, we are looking cross-departmentally on the need for the Department to hire those in education to support, to get involved and to ensure the numbers will be there into the future. It requires a lot of co-ordination.