Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 16 May 2018
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Future of Mental Health Care
Restructuring of Mental Health Services: HSE
1:30 pm
Mr. Dean Sullivan:
It is an interesting question. We are very clear about the mental health needs of patients. Those mental health needs, as the committee's interim report mentions, are met in a range of settings. It would be nearly impossible, and I am not sure how appropriate it would be, to try to ring-fence mental health patients distinct from all other patients in that regard. If I am seeking, as I will be with my colleagues, to deliver mental health services in a more integrated way than is currently the case, for example, GPs deliver a number of mental health services to patients, the practicality of separating that bit that relates to mental health services from the overall primary care budget-----