Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Regarding the figures, in 2015 there were a total of 356 child and adolescent mental health admissions, of which 73% were to age-appropriate units and 27% were to adult units. In May 2016, the most recent figures available, 97.2 of the bed days used were in child and adolescent inpatient units, which is an improvement of 95.4% on April. Our target is 95%. We are steadying out at the moment. I admit that any kind of inappropriate admission is not acceptable, which is why we need to continue to work on increasing our beds and staffing and to make sure that we have community-based care so that children do not need to go into acute services. In that regard, as I have already mentioned in the Chamber, the youth mental health task force, which I will announce next week, will tie in the voluntary, private, public and all the different sectors together to work together. I would very much like to get to the stage where we do not need charities to provide these services. We will have succeeded if we get to that stage, but we are a long way from there, so we need to work together. That is exactly what the youth mental health task force will aim to do.

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