Ms Kate Mitchell:

I will come in on that briefly. On the Deputy's first comment, most of the data we have on the demand on services is in the community and voluntary sector and we have seen that from numerous groups such as my colleagues in Jigsaw. SpunOut.ie, the youth online information service, has seen an increase of 44%. MyMind, which provides online and face-to-face mental health services, has seen a tenfold increase. We are seeing particular challenges in accessing services for particular groups of individuals, such as people who are experiencing eating disorders, for example.

We need to ensure that those services are adequately resourced and that people have easy access to services.

The Deputy commented that primary care should be meeting 90% of the need. That is accurate but there are issues about lack of capacity, and primary care services need to be appropriately resourced. We can see that in the long waiting lists for primary care psychology, for example, where more than 8,000 people are waiting for a first appointment. Approximately one third of those have been waiting for more than a year to be seen for the first time. While services are already under strain and we are seeing increased demand, the Government needs to match that with appropriate resourcing.

In terms of particular groups of individuals, the UN and the WHO have identified particular groups of individuals that may be at risk, including young people, those experiencing domestic violence, and front-line healthcare workers so our services need to be prepared to meet that need. One of the ways we can do that is to immediately establish the implementation group that should be set up to ensure implementation of the new mental health policy, Sharing the Vision: A Mental Health Policy for Everyone, to ensure that the particular needs of these groups of individuals are adequately met.