James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister. I would simply repeat the figure that I previously stated. We spend €400 million a year on psychotropic drugs but we only spend €10 million on talk therapies. We hear about pilot studies and programmes but they are not being rolled out nationwide. Things seem to take so long. Take Jigsaw as an example. It started as a pilot and is a phenomenal programme. However, I was told 18 months ago that it was going to arrive in Tipperary within a couple of months. It is still not there. It needs to be rolled out across the country. There is a crisis in the waiting lists for our child and adolescent mental health services. That is partially because there is a crisis in our waiting lists for access to child psychologists, which in turn is developing because there is a crisis in respect of the complete lack of availability of talk therapy. In other words, when children first need supports they are not there. They then need access to psychologists but cannot get to them and the next thing is that they are in CAMHS. When children who are growing rapidly, both biologically and emotionally, do not get early intervention very quickly the long-term effects can be profound. Talk therapies need to be provided at a much greater level than they are at the moment.

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