Pat Deering (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for not being here earlier. It was an oversight on my part. I thank the Minister of State for attending to take this Topical Issue on the lack of a consultant psychiatrist in Carlow for the last period. The position has been vacant in Carlow for a number of years at this stage. There was a mental hospital in Carlow for many years, but it closed following the policy changes of recent years. While the outreach service has, generally speaking, been good, the position of consultant psychiatrist has remained vacant with services being provided on a locum basis. The locum would come on a weekly basis to meet clients, but when a new locum attended, the client had to start from scratch all over again to explain his or her story. The lack of consistency has been a huge problem. As difficult as the locum situation was, there has been no service at all since 1 February 2018. There is no consultant psychiatrist at all, whether provided by a locum or otherwise. There is no service in Carlow at all to cover what is unfortunately a great level of need locally. Service users have now been told that their care plans will not be reviewed and that the medication they have been prescribed will have to continue to do them until a consultant psychiatrist is available or a similar service can be provided. This is totally unsatisfactory. At the very least, a locum service should be provided to meet the needs of people in Carlow. If those needs did not exist, the position would not have been created to meet them. While I appreciate that there is a huge difficulty in filling vacancies and that consultant psychiatrists are extremely hard to acquire, closing the service completely has been a regressive move. I ask the Minister of State two questions. When will the position be filled? What is the possibility of renewing the locum service in the short to medium term?

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