Dr. Harry Barry:

I could not agree more with the Deputy. The word "empathy" is terribly important, and face-to-face interactions with children, teaching children to talk to each other and talk to us face-to-face rather than through technology and machinery. I could not agree more with him about structure. I worry sometimes that we are heading towards a country that becomes so regulated and so structured that normal humanity gets sucked out of it. There is a risk if we allow things to become too regimented. There has to be a certain amount of give and take in terms of humanity.

On the question of access versus regulation, it is critically important that counselling and psychotherapy is subject to some form of regulation because all GPs will tell us that they are asked by their patients regularly to whom can they go or to whom can they bring their child if they have mental health issues. Many will say that they are not sure to whom he or she could send the patient. The GPs do not know so the benefit of properly organised regulated system would allow the GP to say that the person has been properly vetted so he or she would be comfortable sending a patient to the therapist. That is a big plus of regulation. However, if we spend all our attention on just getting everybody regulated, then we have this beautifully regulated system and nobody able to access it. We have highly trained psychotherapists, some of whom are excellent, but nobody is able to access them because we do not have a proper structure. The vision for the future has to get the intermingling of the State system in funding organisations. I do not how to do that but I suggested the English system, but we need a system whereby people can access a service quickly. I wish to emphasise "access quickly". When people are emotionally distressed, they do not want to be told that the nearest appointment will be in six weeks by which time they will have been down at the river or in the emergency department or have spent six weeks in total emotional distress. If that person could have telephoned a number, and talked to a human being, not a machine, and been assigned to a professional who would assess them within a 24 hour period, at least it would have lessened that person's emotional distress. Just talking about our distress often goes a long way towards reducing it. If a person cannot reach anybody, and this applies to parents who are becoming increasingly distressed because nobody will speak to their child. They are being told that it takes six weeks before the child can be assessed. We need a more rapid access system and a system under which people are not told that if they can pay this amount they can be seen. Surely as a modern country, if we love and care for our people, we should provide the services they require.