Mr. Michael Walsh:

Can I go back to Deputy Browne's question? The Deputy asked about the impact on the parents and on the child of being admitted to an adult psychiatric hospital. It has to be devastating. A child is admitted aged 14, 15 or 16 to an adult psychiatric ward. He or she is not allowed out onto the ward during the hours where the adult patients are moving around that facility. He or she is only allowed out in the company of a psychiatric nurse. If one brings the mother or father of that child into that facility, he or she cannot stay there and be with him or her. There is nowhere for the parent to stay in that facility. When the child is admitted to our inpatient unit in Cork, there is no place for the parents to stay when they visit that patient.

In England and every other developed service, one allows parents to stay with their child. The policy is that one would try to keep services near the patient. This is clearly not happening. We had Planning for the Future in 1984, if anyone remembers it. There was to be a 20-bed unit attached to every general hospital in the country, which would make sense for Wexford. Instead traipsing across the county trying to get to Waterford to be treated, people could go locally to their own Wexford General Hospital and be managed there. One would have the psychiatric situation sorted and dealt with in that area. I listen to parents every day of the week who are devastated that their children are in an adult psychiatric hospital. As far as I am concerned, it is against the Geneva Convention and human rights.