James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle for giving me an opportunity to speak about serious mental health cases among young people. On RTÉ's "The Big Picture - Young and Troubled" broadcast last Thursday we witnessed some heart-rending examples of the distress being experienced by young people with mental health issues and their families as they tried to access child and adolescent mental health services. Unfortunately, the stories we heard from these brave families on RTÉ last Thursday night are reflected across the country. The Government consistently states it is doing all it can, but the facts speak for themselves and I will provide some recent examples. A significant number of children are still being placed in adult units, some for up to six weeks. Some of them have to sleep on chairs or in hallways. At the end of January, over 6,000 children were waiting for a primary care psychology appointment. Over 1,500 of them had been waiting for more than one year. There is a similar situation in child and adolescent mental health services, with over 2,500 children on the waiting list, of whom 351 are on the list for over one year. Barely over half of the number of staff needed to provide a basic child and adolescent mental health service are in place throughout the country. When we engage in early identification and integrated intervention, we can help to reduce significantly the burden of mental ill-health on young people. We do this by identifying symptoms and warning signs at an early stage and, having done so, providing expedient and suitable care. Mental illness is particularly receptive and responsive to early intervention. The mental health system for young people seems to be geared towards triage and crisis intervention. When will the Government provide access to the timely and appropriate early intervention that is desperately needed by young people with mental illnesses?

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