Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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One thing I have found with regard to medication for children and young people is that, in some cases, a parent may feel that the medication has an adverse effect on the child or teenager and decides not to pursue it. To my mind, this is a very false economy. I would like to see a more uniform process applying in all cases so that there would not be peaks and valleys in either the quality of the services available throughout the country and the quality of attention given to individual cases, particularly in the case of young people who, very often, decide to withhold information as to whether they are taking their medication. That has been my experience. I would not have dealt with as many cases as the witnesses would deal with but I deal with a fair number of them. I would like to be reassured about that in terms of continuation of their medication programme.