Ms Kate Mitchell:

Deputy O'Reilly raises a very important question. Mental Health Reform has carried out consultations in different parts of the country for a number of years. It is one issue where we heard consistently from people who use the services when they experience a mental health difficulty, family members and mental health professionals and what we have heard echoes what Deputy O'Reilly saying, which is that when somebody is in mental distress, he or she is in crisis and an accident and emergency department is the last place he or she wants to be. It is not an appropriate environment. It can be quite distressing. It can be very noisy and chaotic and in many situations, the person is waiting for an extremely long period of time to be seen by a mental health professional. In some cases, people will leave before they get the support they need, which can lead to tragic consequences.

Mental Health Reform has been advocating for out-of-hours mental health services. We received a commitment from the Minister of State with responsibility for mental health to roll out seven-day-a-week services in all parts of the country for adult mental health services. Recruitment has been completed for about 36 of the 48 posts required to deliver on that roll-out, with an additional eight posts accepted but the implementation of this 7-7 provision is slow, so it is important that we see the implementation of that as a matter of priority. In many areas of the country, there are no 7-7 or 24-7 mental health services for children and young people, who must go to an accident and emergency unit when they are in mental distress and crisis. Often when they go to an accident and emergency department, they do not get to see a child and adolescent mental health professional but are seen by an adult consultant psychiatrist. Many families and children have to wait quite a considerable amount of time to get that crisis support. We would say that there needs to be a roll-out of 24-7 services for children and young people. It is really important that this is implemented as a matter of priority.