Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the families and advocacy groups in the Gallery this evening. I remind the Minister of State that those people are watching us to see if we are serious about the issue of mental health. They are marking our cards and rightly so. I do not know what we will get for effort but the outcomes so far are very poor. I acknowledge the launch of the national task force on youth mental health. The Minister of State is telling us that this will be a community-led task force to take action to improve the mental health and well-being of children and young people in Ireland. It has had its second meeting this week and is expected to continue for the next 12 months. One of the aims of the task force is "to design and provide leadership for changes that get communities working together at a local level and services working together at a national level to improve supports for young people so that every young person in Ireland is supported to build their own resilience and emotional wellbeing." Those are very fine words. When young people reach out, get talking or look for services, irrespective of the supports that communities may provide, the missing link of these services where the State should step in is problematic. They are very often sorely lacking. This is causing serious problems. We should be able to say that the changes that will be proposed by this task force will be implemented. We should be able to say that this task force will work in tandem with the services that the Health Service Executive is providing. The task force and the Minister of State have to bring pressure to bear in ensuring that HSE services are in place to supplement the supports the task force is designing.

Less than an hour ago, the Minister of State said she believes that 90% of mental health needs can be met, dealt with and treated successfully in primary care settings. In August 2016, I received a response to a parliamentary question from the HSE advising me there are no primary care psychology services for the under-18 population of my constituency, Dublin Fingal. It is scandalous and deeply worrying that in an area so populated and where there is massive growth, there are no psychology services available for those under 18. I do not have to convince the Minister of State of the need to resource primary care. She has convinced me that 90% of mental health needs can be successfully treated in a primary care setting. We do not have mental health services in a primary care setting. We have not implemented the recommendations of A Vision for Change. What we have instead is a system that is creaking and people who are crying out and desperate for help.

I urge the Minister of State to implement those recommendations, not in a while but immediately.

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