Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I accept the Minister of State's bona fides in terms of tackling youth mental health but reading her speech today it would be unclear to anyone that we are facing a crisis in mental health services. I spoke recently at a conference held by the Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health. I spoke to youth mental health workers and psychiatrists beforehand. One of them told me there is such low morale in the service that they are finding it impossible to hire people for youth mental health posts. A psychiatrist told me that access to youth mental health services is currently so bad that GPs outside of Dublin are writing letters advising that the young person is at serious risk of suicide. They are advising that young person to go to an emergency department in a Dublin hospital with the letter in order to skip the queue and get access to youth mental health services. That is what is going on in our country but there is no recognition of how bad the situation is in mental health and youth mental health services.

A Vision for Change recommended that 8.24% of the health budget should be spent on mental health services. We are at 6%. The UK is at 12%. In the past seven years, we have lost more than 1,000 mental health staff. This means that our staffing levels are less than 80% of what is recommended in A Vision for Change. As well as adequate funding, the system needs to be seriously modernised. The mental health integration index examines the progress of European countries in helping people manage their mental health to recovery. It looked at areas such as the provision of a stable home and family environment, access to health services, the improvement of work and education opportunities, the reduction of stigma and the increasing of awareness. Of the 30 countries surveyed, Ireland ranked in 14th place. It ranked 16th on access and 17th on opportunities for those in need of mental health support.

In youth mental health, the situation is critical. Young people in Ireland are facing a suicide rate that is in the top four in Europe. More than one fifth of young adults indicated that they have engaged in self-harm. A study of LGBT young people found that one in five has attempted suicide. One in four has self-harmed and one in three has thought seriously of ending his or her life in the past year alone.

What is Ireland's response? As of December last year, we had just more than half the staffing level for youth mental health services recommended in A Vision for Change. There are many solutions. We need to move urgently from a paediatric-adult model to a paediatric-youth-adult model.

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