Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

-----to see what we can do better. At our last meeting, primary care services, disability services, the National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS, and CAMHS were all in the same room to discuss how to break down barriers. Parents in my constituency tell me that, although their children are in primary care, they feel they should be in CAMHS or getting other primary care psychology supports. If someone is in one service, it can sometimes be very difficult to get into another and people do not want to leave the first service. Everything is on the table to see how we can improve matters. It is recognised that there is considerable frustration among parents of children with autism. Even though 700 posts have been funded, we are finding it difficult to recruit for them and teams the length and breadth of the country are not fully staffed. There are difficulties in CAMHS as well. There have been 33% more referrals to CAMHS over the past two years, we have seen 21% more young people and 225,000 appointments have been allocated.

However, what I find when you receive the support of CAMHS is that you could be receiving the support of a CAMHS team for up to five or six years. You might be going there once a month. It is not a case that you will be going for one appointment and then that will be it. What we are seeing at the moment is that many more children and young people who are presenting to the service are actually leaving the service because their conditions are very complex.