Maire Devine (Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Minister and Minister of State for their presentations. I am very interested in being educated on telepsychiatry. We need to factor in body language, non-verbal communication and the demeanour of the individual. These are much more important than verbal communications in making an assessment.

The spend on agency staff for the months of January, February and March of 2018 was €13 million and the figure is projected to rise to €100 million. This spending is eating into the budget for the year.

I flag again the closure on Friday of the Linn Dara unit, which I raised this morning with the Minister of State. I ask him not to repeat the statement provided by the HSE.

The mental health services are chaotic and in crisis. The committee has been dealing with this issue since its inception. There should be 15 day programmes in place nationwide but we only have two such programmes and 50% of the community teams are not fully resourced. I will not use the HSE's non-transparent figures. I have improved upon those figures and I know the service is in demand.

I ask the Minister to focus on Traveller health. Interviews were held in February for grade 7 mental health service co-ordinators. When will the successful candidates be appointed? Why were Traveller organisations not given the resources to undertake this work, considering that 83% of Travellers receive all their health information from Traveller organisations?

Given the level of evidence of health inequalities, in particular the Traveller mental health crisis, which is astounding, why has Traveller health not received any money since 2008?