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:

As the Deputy will appreciate, there are maybe 60 different examples of things that are as much an issue, as risky and as difficult for patients and their families as the CAMHS waiting time. I assure everyone that we will make the case that where there are demonstrable capacity gaps and needs are not being met, we will seek to secure additional resources. If we can get all of those covered off, that will be fantastic, but it will probably be challenging for the Government to provide sufficient resources within a short timeframe to allow all of those needs to be met. In the absence of that, we will have to try to make demonstrable progress across a smaller range of areas to stop the problem getting worse and then to begin to make inroads. I take that on board.