Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein)
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I am in good form today and I agree with the Chair on working together to get services right. I thank the witnesses for appearing before the committee.

Today, I want to highlight some of the good news. The good news is normally not one of the best sellers when it comes to any part of the health service. We cannot be negative all the time. I welcome the approval of five additional posts for 7/7 services in the CHO 7 area. I also welcome the fact an extra 16 additional psychologists and four grade staff psychologists will be appointed in this area. A positive step in another area, CHO 8, is the appointment of an area lead for mental health engagement. It is first time in 11 years that we actually have seen a 50% reduction in the number of suicides, which is to be welcomed.

Today is not pick on Ms Mary Walshe day. However, she spoke about having eight CAMHS teams. Instead of breaking them into percentages, is there 11 or 12 on a team or is it index-linked to specific areas? Last week, the committee heard one team was at 113%, another at 97% and another at 18%. If one team is oversubscribed, can one not take from that to bring the other teams up to be fully staffed?

The committee is not anti-agency but there is an issue around retention and recruitment. Ms Mary Walshe made a valid point earlier about paying overtime and having stability in a team. A team needs to fully staffed. One needs harmony and happiness in a system with everybody working with each other. We have seen that there is friction between permanent staff and agency staff. There is no harmony. It aggrieves me that we have a problem with the hiring and retention of staff but we can still afford to take on agency staff. We cannot afford to pay our own staff more and give them a better package to retain them in this specialist job but we can pay more to agencies. It probably is twice as much because the agency staff get a higher fee and the agents are paid more. How are we going to move away from that? Do we have to revisit the whole area of staffing and new contracts? If we are to train people in this area, must we ensure they have a guarantee that they will have a proper secure job, properly paid and possibilities of promotion? There does not seem to be harmony in this area. In most of the CHOs, 49% are HSE staff and the rest is made up of agency staff. It does not seem to work.