Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

I apologise if I am repeating myself but I said yesterday and this morning that A Vision for Change spells out the difficulty and the areas where there are insufficient staff. It points out where we need additional teams and resources. That is why the Minister of State, Deputy Tim O'Malley, and his colleagues in the Department of Health and Children, produced the report of the expert group on mental health this year in January which covers adults and children. It is the blueprint for the next few years, built on what has been done in recent years.

Deputy Sargent is right, that report shows that we have a five year programme to bring the service up to what it requires. We are into year two. The Health Service Executive, HSE, says that it has 45 child and adolescent mental health teams and needs 40 more. Until we get that 40 we will not have satisfied the requirement. It is not a question of saying that everything is right. That is what the report highlights. That is why we put the resources into it and why the expenditure has risen so much. Apart from the requirement for €150 million to finish the closure of the old hospitals as recommended in the 1984 report, Mental Health Planning for the Future, all of that expenditure goes on staff. We spent an additional €26 million on the eight teams set up this year.

The staff have not all been recruited, not because anybody was sitting on his or her hands, but because it is hard to get them. The HSE is committed to doing that. Next year it needs the same until we reach the 40 teams, 32 of which are still outstanding. That will deal with the assessments and the increase in consultant posts, from 200 to 300 posts, which we have begun and will continue.

Deputy Sargent also mentioned the campaign by St. Michael's House and others to deal with the residential waiting lists for the people of various ages who depend mainly on their parents. This will enable them to feel secure in their old age that there will be proper residential accommodation for their children. Over the past few years we have invested substantial resources in the bricks and mortar required. Most of these organisations, of which there are several around the country, such as St. Michael's House in Deputy Sargent's area, are building new houses and renovating houses to make them suitable for the staff to work with groups of between four and six elderly or young people to protect them for the future.

They have quite long waiting lists, which are growing even though we have invested and they acknowledge that we have done so. Due to the age profile, they have problems and made the case this year for additional resources which they received. Funding must be provided every year. They can do only so much each year but they have built up a waiting list which the Minister for Health and Children and the Minister for Finance, Deputy Cowen, who started this programme when he was Minister for Health and Children, require further resources to address in order to have more units in 2007. They have made their case and the Minister is dealing with it.

That is only the residential part of the work. Many other areas are being dealt with, apart from those discussed this morning, for example the national strategy action on suicide prevention, Reach Out, the work on the central mental hospital, and many other areas with which we must deal. Everything is not perfect but at least we have an action programme which we are resourcing and staffing and which is making a significant difference and must continue to do so until we get on top of this problem.

Members should acknowledge the major increase in staff this year whereby we have employed 98 consultant psychiatrists in recent years. This year alone we have taken on 400 additional staff but we have some way to go to reach the figure of 1,800 outlined in the report last January.

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