Ms Margaret Brennan:

On the cost of medication, the area medical officer for the HSE area dictates what can be allowed on a long-term illness card. The area medical officers in Galway and Wexford decided that ADHD was not allowable on the long-term illness card for children, whereas every other county in Ireland was covered and all the other children in Ireland with ADHD were allowed the cost of their medication, which at the time was €150. I appealed this as I felt it was inequality and discrimination based on where we choose to live, and I won the appeal.

On the question on the schools, the youngest child I ever had who expressed suicidal ideation was seven years old. We did not have a counsellor in that small rural school and we did not know what to do and had to get an external counsellor. Counselling in secondary schools has been cut and cut again. To get a slot for a teenager, one would have to be very lucky. I know the counsellors in three schools. One was brought in externally and the other two were on the school staff and teaching, so they were working their counselling around their teaching hours. It is very difficult, especially in a boys school, as they will not go to the counsellor.

There is one social care system working in the south-east called Hedge Schools Therapy, and I am sure all committee members are aware of it. It is very difficult to get and it can be accessed only through the HSE. My son was lucky and they changed his future. They brought him out cycling and rock climbing, and they took him on one half day from school. They are social care workers. All they do is outdoor therapy; they build fires in the woods and build resilience. Little by little, he began to disclose what had led to him being in CAMHS in the first place, which he has written down. He has also written an account of his time as an inpatient, which is horrific.

Little by little, they changed his future and now he is doing well in college. The services and play therapists are there. There are therapists and psychologists but somebody is not funding the team.