Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I refer to the ongoing crisis in child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, across the State. Everyone here knows parents and families who are struggling to access care for their children. We have all heard from staff acting on the front line who find that drastically inadequate staffing levels make it impossible to meet the demand for the care they want to provide. Figures provided by the HSE for my colleague, Teachta Louise O'Reilly, show that midway through the year the waiting list for CAMHS stood at more than 2,700 children and young adults. That is not the waiting list for treatment but for the very first step of initial assessment. Many young people have been waiting a year or more to be assessed. These are the young lives that are in limbo. There are families who are at their wit's end. The State is failing children.

In some parts of the State the waiting lists are absolutely shocking. In the area covered by community healthcare organisation, CHO, 1 which includes my constituency of Donegal there was a waiting list of 203 children at the end of last year. In the area covered by CHO 4 which includes counties Cork and Kerry there was a waiting list of 737 children for an initial assessment for mental health services. It is an absolute scandal. We cannot continue to allow these lists to grow and grow putting more children at risk. That is what it all boils down to. Children are at risk because the State is failing to make sure the care for which they are reaching can be provided.

CAMHS simply is not meeting the needs of young people who are often in desperate need of immediate care. It is primarily the result of a failure to recruit the staff needed to fully operate CAMHS teams. For some time about half the positions in CAMHS teams have been vacant across the State, yet when my party leader, Deputy McDonald, raised the issue of the recruitment and retention of nurses, including psychiatric nurses, the Taoiseach simply dismissed our concerns. An immediate response is needed, particularly in areas where the problem is at its worst. Earlier this year the Oireachtas Joint Committee on the Future of Mental Health Care outlined a raft of measures to improve the recruitment and retention of vital staff. By filling vacancies quickly and improving conditions we can improve services, attract more staff and keep the excellent staff we already have. Let me state that when CAMHS is able to assess and care for young people, the service does an excellent job, with very good results. However, we cannot allow a situation to persist where if a child or a young person needs care, he or she faces an extended period of waiting that will put him or her and his or her mental health at serious risk. We need to see dedicated action to attract new staff and keep the excellent staff we already have. Promises were made by the Government last year that the disastrous staffing levels in CAMHS would be addressed, but they have not been. Will the Government recommit to doing so and ensure it will actually happen this time?

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