Ms Fiona Coyle:

In terms of the number of children being referred to adult inpatient settings, this has decreased over the past number of years. However, from our position, any child being admitted into an adult unit is one child too many and we need to move towards that not happening. Our current legislation has been in place for two decades. When is the next time we will update this legislation? We would ask the Government and the Oireachtas to be ambitious in the goals that it sets and to ensure there is agreement that this should not be happening and, therefore, we should put it on a statutory footing.

The understanding from the service is that this is done as a last resort and these are not decisions that are taken lightly. Unfortunately, it speaks to the availability of services and Mental Health Reform would advocate that everybody, in particular, children and young people, gets the supports and services they need at the earliest possible time so that they may not need to be admitted in an emergency into an adult inpatient unit. While we need to ensure that this does not happen, we need to look at how we prevent that and go back to the root causes, which is investing in the services that are available to children and young people to ensure they are getting the supports and the services they need and that they are not spending up to a year on a waiting list and perhaps ending up in a situation where they need to be admitted. Does Mr. Ryan have anything he would like to add?