Dr. Anne Doherty:

I thank the Deputy for his very interesting perspective on all this. As some colleagues have already said, there is a lot of international evidence about what works. We could take some of that and apply it to the Irish context, perhaps as a pilot but also perhaps, if it works really well, we could just implement it. Even if we could just implement the requirements set out in A Vision for Change, which is now 16 or 17 years old, we would at least be moving in the right direction. However, as everyone keeps saying, we need to be seriously investing in mental health services at secondary and primary care level.

The Deputy asked about a tsunami of mental health problems. I work in an emergency department. Obviously, if people are coming in through an emergency department, they have reached a serious point of crisis. That is not how people should have to access mental healthcare. It should be possible to access secondary mental healthcare in a much more structured way. We are seeing an increase of about 150% or 160% of pre-Covid levels now. The numbers coming through are enormous. They are people who are very unwell who need very expert care. In some ways they are the tip of the iceberg because they are the people we are seeing in that setting. There certainly does appear to be an increase in people who need our services at the moment.