Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I do not have any further information other than sections 38 and 39 and the national lottery funding. Both application forms are available on the website. There is no reason that a local organisation or a local branch of an organisation such as SOSAD could not apply for section 38 or section 39 funding. I saw recently that 1,027 organisations in the State that specifically help with mental health issues are receiving funding. That is one of the challenges we have because people do not know where to go when they have a mental health issue. For that reason I aim to establish a single access point for all mental health queries, be it a telephone line, text line or email, so people can be referred appropriately. If one is in the Tullamore region, for example, one will ring a single national telephone number. The person at the other end, who would be appropriately qualified, will say: "SOSAD is an organisation on our list, it is in the geographical area and it can offer the service", rather than SOSAD trying to make itself known to everybody. ALONE, Aware, Jigsaw and Pieta House are trying to do the same thing. They are all trying to sell their brand, as it were, and make people aware of their existence. We are trying to streamline a single access point for all these organisations, provided they have the appropriate level of governance be they clinical.

Many practitioners in the field of mental health and I are big supporters of organisations such as SOSAD. Lower levels of intervention can be very powerful. Not every young person needs to go into the child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, which are led by a consultant psychiatrist. In some cases younger people just have anxiety issues and they do not need to be seen by a specialist service. That is why organisations such as the one the Deputy mentioned are so vital for early intervention, to ensure we can stop people going into the specialist services and the queues that build therein.

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