John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

That is positive news. I thank Dr. Young for her presence this morning, given that she is out on sick leave. I appreciate that.

Moving on to what for me is the important piece, Ms O'Connor stated that the HSE acknowledges in the report that the scope of the look-back review is confined to practices in south Kerry CAMHS. She noted that the HSE also appreciates that the Maskey report can give rise to concern among children, young people and their families who avail of services provided by CAMHS teams in other parts of the country. In order to deal with that and provide assurances to them, the HSE's national oversight group will commission an independently chaired review of medication practices across all CAMHS teams. Ms O'Connor told us that Dr. Colette Halpin is to be the chair of that group. On a brief perusal, and I am not casting any aspersions on Dr. Halpin who seems to have a very good curriculum vitae as a consultant child psychiatrist, she was involved in Offaly CAMHS at one stage. As a layperson and public representative, I would like to have seen the Maskey model followed and someone without any involvement in CAMHS being appointed. I ask Ms O'Connor to comment on that presently.

Ms O'Connor also stated that the oversight group will commission an audit of compliance with operational guidelines. Will she talk me through the prescribing and medication audit that is proposed? Many children who turn up to CAMHS would be referred to CAMHS with many different presenting issues. It could be self-harm, eating disorders, depression, anxiety, suicidal tendencies, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, ADHD, or mental health intellectual disabilities, MHID. That is quite a broad range of complex needs. Will there be a look-back at a random sample of files to see if medication and prescribing was appropriate similar to the one that was done in Kerry?