Mr. Eoin Barry:

As CAMHS operates at present under an operating guideline nationwide, there is a policy in place for the transition on the CAMHS side, which is not necessarily replicated on the adult side. As far as I am aware, there is no equivalent on the adult side of things. There need to be policies that work between the two different services in order that they work together and there is agreement about where young people transition. There has been a lot of debate about 18 as the age of transition, particularly around the updated Sharing the Vision document. There is debate over whether we should have a young persons service, going from adolescence up to 25, or a child and adolescent service with an adult service to which people transition at 18. The problem is that while 18 is legally a very important age consent-wise, in the life of young people it is actually quite an arbitrary line. A young person could be in the middle of his or her leaving certificate year and could have been going to CAMHS for years and in some places he or she might go straight into adult services. That creates an issue. The other problem is when a young person presents in a mental crisis a month before his or her 18th birthday. Do such people go to CAMHS for a month and then transition to adult services, or does the adult service take them for that month?

This does not necessarily require legislation but it requires very clear protocols between the different services so that every young person, regardless of where he or she lives in the country, knows the way it should work. At the moment it is highly inconsistent and very much dependent on the consultants, which puts a lot of pressure on the consultants to negotiate in their own local areas. It is something that must be addressed in order that young adults know well in advance. They should not be worrying at 17 that they will not get the supports they need or will not be accepted into a service. It is more a matter of protocol and policy than addressing it in legislation but we feel it is very important to raise it as an issue when considering this Bill.