Patrick Costello (Dublin South Central, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

My experience of CAMHS is mostly as someone referring people to them. My biggest frustration was, to be blunt, the gatekeeping that happened a lot. If there was a suggestion of substance abuse, CAMHS would shut down and not take the person. Where there was a suggestion of disability, CAMHS would shut down and not touch the case. Ms Grogan made the point that people who are engaged with CAMHS have been on a waiting list for a long time. However, there is also a whole cohort of people who never make it onto that waiting list. It is important to name them.

Dr. McCarney touched on the community services. An answer I got quite often was that issues were emotional or behavioural and that community services were more appropriate. There is a disjointed system in which there is never an obvious service to refer people to or assistance in making that referral. As has been said, it is a case of waiting at the wrong door. That is my own frustration with CAMHS but we are dealing with dual diagnosis and, where there are two things going on, the situation is much more severe.

I will pick up on a few things. For clarity, is it the case that YoDA and SASSY are the only services of their kind in the country at the moment?