Ms Fiona Kearney:

The model of funding for community and voluntary sector organisations is set up to be competitive. A small bit of money is put out there and we are all competing for it. In the next breath, we are being asked to work together in an inter-agency approach. That does not work. There must be a reconsideration of the funding model.

The really important point on which I wanted to come back relates to CAMHS. I cannot stop talking about this because of the impact it is having on young people and on primary care psychology. In my community of Ballyfermot and Cherry Orchard, there is a waiting list of three and a half years to access primary care psychology and a six-month waiting list for CAMHS. However, it is not just about the waiting lists. We often refer children at seven years of age. With boys and girls of that age, we start to see whatever is going on for them manifesting in their behaviour. We refer them but by the time they get a response from primary care psychology, their needs have increased. We have done what we can with the family locally and all of that. Then there is a referral to CAMHS. When the children get in the door of CAMHS, they are not getting a therapeutic service. Young people are getting prescriptions, if that is what is required. We really need to think about trauma and its connection to mental health diagnoses, which is something CAMHS says it does not deal with. A lot of trauma ends up in a mental health diagnosis. There is a huge crossover there.

We are not sorting out CAMHS and primary care psychology for the immediate future. I ask the committee to consider the models of community mental health provision. We need to be able to do something really quickly, such as piloting ten or 12 projects around the country to provide mental health services alongside youth services, where a young person is comfortable with that approach. The Jigsaw model is considered a level 2 intervention with primary care psychology before a young person gets to CAMHS. I would argue that the youth services are better placed to deliver that service. We have built the relationship with the children and their family, done the crisis intervention, met them on the street and brought them so far. The next part is proper recovery. That is the bit we can do if we are given the funding to offer mental health provision alongside youth services. I would really like the committee to consider that as an immediate response to what is going on in CAMHS.