Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for the question and his interest. He is right that there are a lot of challenges with CAMHS, but a lot of good work is happening too. Out of all people hired by the HSE, there are 10,500 whole time equivalents working in mental health services.

Regarding CAMHS specifically, 820 whole-time equivalents are working in CAMHS across 75 teams the length and breadth of the country. What we have discovered and what was known for a long time was that not all the teams are fully populated due to challenges. For example, everyone will be aware of the situation in south Kerry and the Maskey report. We have had a funded post there for a consultant psychiatrist since 2014 and we have still have not been able to staff it notwithstanding all the differences we have made.