Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I wish the Minister of State all the best in her new role. I want to focus on two areas. The first relates to mental health among our children and young people. We all know there has been a significant increase in the number of children and young people suffering in relation to mental health, particularly with anxiety and depression. I commend the role that the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service, CAMHS, carries out. However, it is drastically underfunded and understaffed. Just over half of the required staff are operating in the child and adolescent mental health services at present and it is not uncommon for children and adolescents to wait in excess of a year to be seen. In my own constituency, I was dealing with someone recently who is 16 years old and is facing an 18-month wait. The parents were in contact with me - I know many people will have this type of story - because they are so worried about their son, who will not come out of his room, and they are faced with 18 months of not knowing what exactly is wrong and how they can help him. We cannot stress that enough in respect of young people.

Sinn Féin wants to see an increase in the number of CAMHS teams throughout the country and to ensure that they are staffed and funded properly. It cannot be stressed enough how crucial early intervention is for a child or young person presenting with a difficulty, whether it be depression, self-harm or an anxiety disorder. There have been cuts to guidance counselling in school. Cuts in 2012 have resulted in a 51% reduction in the one-on-one counselling available for children and adolescents. Again, this can often be a first port of call for young people experiencing mental health difficulties. I urge the Minister to restore the funding in this sector. It would cost €14.7 million to restore the 700 posts in this field.

All of this leads to the old saying that prevention is better than cure. When we look at our young people, we do need to look at our education system as well. There are many schools that have access to play therapy for young children, particularly those at primary school level, but unfortunately not all schools have access to this service. It is usually linked to schools that are dealing with the school completion programme and that are in disadvantaged areas. That is one service we need to look at expanding. It costs very little and play therapy can be instrumental in helping a young child at primary school level deal with anxiety in particular. That is something we are seeing more and more of on a daily basis with young children and if it is not dealt with, it develops into this major obstacle for a child and can impact on their education and how they perform in school, on their relationships with friends and family and on their social life. It has such a knock-on effect on everything and it goes back to the argument that prevention is better than cure. We talk a lot about mental health nowadays, but that is one area that gets overlooked. The CAMHS runs a very good service, but I do not think they access play therapy for younger children, and that is something we need to look at in respect of the education system.

My last point relates to the suicide crisis assessment nurses. These nurses liaise with GPs where there are concerns about patients who may be suicidal, but only 24 of the 35 nurses approved for this programme have been recruited. I urge the Minister of State to go ahead with the job of recruiting the rest of these nurses, because it is key when somebody is in crisis that they have access to the services and do not have to wait. That is the big problem we all see on a daily basis with people who come to us: they have to wait and unfortunately they cannot afford to wait. For many people when they are going through a difficult time, if they finally make that decision to reach out to a GP or whoever it might be and they do not get the service, they then decide there is no point and it has a knock-on effect. I urge the Minister of State to ensure correct and adequate funding goes into these services because we cannot just be talking about it - we really have to see action on these points.

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