Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I want to raise with the Taoiseach the scandalous issue of the capacity of young teenagers to access child and adolescent mental health services and the enormous stress that their families have to endure because of what is an appalling situation - I am not exaggerating - across the country. Waiting lists to access services have jumped by 28% to 2,908 people. The number of people waiting for longer than one year has increased by 78%. There are 6,000 children waiting for primary care psychology appointments, 1,784 of whom have been waiting for longer than a year. These are the HSE's own data on the services in question. For some reason, the Cork-Kerry region is extraordinarily bad in terms of the numbers waiting longer than a year at 158 out of 324.

The capacity of the Department of Health, the Minister and the system to respond seems very poor. One in three posts has been filled in mental health services from 2015 to 2016. In that time, 520 approved positions were allocated, but it was nowhere near what was required. Some 2,000 extra staff were required, yet only 93 additional staff have been recruited in 2017. In child and adolescent services alone, people say that close to 600 staff are required before we can get those services to where they need to be.

I have a caseload of children and young teenagers that is quite shocking. In one case, there was a June 2016 assessment of need, a complaint was made that November and, eventually, a solicitor had to write a letter. In May 2017, the assessment was carried through. I have a list, as I am sure every Deputy does, of young children who have been unable to access mental health services.

The Roscommon report, published on 1 September, illustrates more dysfunctionality.

There is also the incredible situation of the loss of a significant number of nursing staff. The report estimated a shortage of 50 nurses in Roscommon and about 100 in Galway while money was being handed back. For two years, Deputy James Browne and I have been going to both the Taoiseach's predecessor and the former Minister of State with responsibility, Deputy McEntee. Who is in charge? Where is the Government oversight? Where is the ministerial oversight? There is an incredible inertia in our mental health services, an incredible lack of joined-up operations and of people working together as they should. Nobody is in charge. Ministers seem to be conduits receiving information and passing information on. No one is drilling down in terms of what is going on on the ground. Ministers for Health and Ministers of State with responsibility for mental health seem to be in that position to get promoted out of it. The lack of achievement over the past number of years in this area is truly shocking and unacceptable for the young children and teenagers and their families.

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