Mr. Ian Power:

Regarding the availability of a workforce, there is a reluctance in certain areas to fund training places. Disability, social inclusion, primary care and mental health are competing for a shrinking workforce and a low number of people who are available to join their teams. If there is a small pool of resources you need to direct to the most appropriate and urgent need, you might not invest in a training place where you do not know that this person is actually going to end up in your system and contribute to the need you have. This is why it is really important that the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science takes that leadership role around skills, planning and what we need for our future mental health care workforce so that it is the one directing the resources. If we had an easier system whereby everyone could chip in and the vote system was such that it was easier, you could do it that way but you cannot so it must be the Department creating the resource allocation for all different programmes to expand the number of places. As Mr. Smyth said, every year we do not do it, we prolong this issue because in some cases it is three years, while in the case of psychiatry, it is five, six or seven years, which is too long for us to wait to start really tackling the problem.

I urge committee members to really take on this issue because, while we can all talk about moving the deck chairs around in the interim, until we increase the number of people working in the system and create space for psychotherapy in the different services, we are ultimately on a hiding to nothing because the demand is always increasing.