Ms Jean Manahan:

I absolutely concur. It is a source of major frustration for the member of the ICP, knowing that we have 1,500 highly trained psychotherapists who have gone through this extraordinarily intensive preparation but who are not being utilised. I have this vision that somebody goes into the emergency department- and we will all be familiar with this scenario - who is left wandering around being monitored by the porter to make sure that the person is kept safe. The person eventually leaves and is not seen again because he or she goes down to the river.

What is there to prevent the establishment of a system whereby one could lift a phone and ask for a psychotherapist to come and see the person. At the very minimum they can be held by the psychotherapist. It is so human to have an interaction that I call, "an I and thou", where two people can come together, with one holding the distress because that is the issue. Not everybody can hold the level of distress that may need to be held but the highly trained psychotherapist can do that and can also make a decision on whether this person needs to be referred, held or can be seen. There are waiting lists full of people, who do not need to be on them, as Dr. Barry said, but because of the length of time waiting to see somebody, they end up on incorrect waiting lists.

Deputy Neville asked about the concept of money following the patient. Many countries such as Denmark, Luxembourg, Germany, US and the UK practise the model of the money following the patient. It is not a difficult model to think about. When Senator James Reilly was the then Minister for Health, he considered this model for hospital care. It could be applied to community care, which means that people could access the therapists they want in the community. It could be a voucher system or payment on production of a receipt to the HSE. It is not beyond our imagination to figure out a way to do it. If one is paying €70 per session, it would aggregate to €700 in ten weeks, which is a great deal of money for an average person to be able to afford, and yet the long-term benefit and gain financially to the State is well worth the investment in this service.