Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I support this proposal and the principle of what Deputy Munster is saying. Part of the problem here was evident when we met representatives of the HSE for two or three sessions last year to deal with the health services in their entirety. Therefore, there is no way any one area would get the level of scrutiny it probably deserves. In talking about bringing in witnesses to talk about the mental health services, Deputies Catherine Murphy and McAuliffe have rightly pointed out that even within that category we could probably use all our meetings for the rest of the year to scrutinise a specific topic. The first thing we must do is to expedite this endeavour as quickly as possible, because there has been serious public interest in this topic.

This week alone, I have heard four senior Government representatives say in the Dáil that money is not an issue in this regard. Clearly, then, we must find out what is happening with all this money that is apparently being allocated to our mental services if we as public representatives are dealing with people every day of the week who are telling us they cannot access them. I suggest that we invite the senior management of the HSE, including the CEO, to appear before the committee as soon as possible, as proposed by Deputy Munster. We can clarify in our private sessions what aspects we will be dealing with. I do not envisage this being a once-off meeting. We will probably need to follow it up with more sessions.