Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to have the opportunity to speak on this issue. We do not dedicate enough time to this very important issue, which is almost pushed under the carpet despite the serious issues that exist in our mental health services. The mental health service for children and adolescents falls short of what is needed and is failing young people and their families. We have got to a place where, as a society, we have become more comfortable in expressing our concerns around mental health and, in many ways, mental health awareness has never had a higher profile, with sufferers encouraged to seek help. Sadly, currently we have neither the capacity nor the staffing in place to adequately respond to children and their families who are seeking help. This beats all. We need proper investment by the Government in mental health services.

A Vision for Change recommended that 8.24% of total health spending should be directed to the mental health services but we are well below that target, which is not good enough in this day and age. The demand for our mental health services is rising and therefore it is a no-brainer that funding for mental health services must also rise. What is even more appalling is that A Vision for Change identified a progressive decline in the amount of expenditure being allocated to the mental health services, from 13% in 1984 to 7.3% in 2004. Rather than reversing this reduction, this Government and previous ones have flatly ignored this finding, and the Government has continued to cut back on mental health services funding. This is not acceptable by anyone's standards.

Across the water, our neighbours in the UK spend 10% to 11% of the health budget on mental health services. Why are we so behind in regard to investing in our mental health services in this country? This chronic underfunding has manifested in a failure of State agencies to provide adequate mental health services to children and adolescents. The Irish Medical Organisation has stated that good patient outcomes are most likely if patients have timely access to advice, assessment and treatment but, unfortunately, CAMHS is currently under-resourced and is still far below the level of capacity recommended. This means each team is forced to serve a larger population, creating additional pressures on each team and longer waiting times for patients.

The Minister of State is pushing for online services to be available to mental health patients but, in all honesty, if I was a parent of a child who needed to access the mental health services, I would not be jumping up and down if I was directed to go online to deal with the problems through a computer. I would want to meet a person face-to-face to discuss the child's mental health issues and, from there, to come up with a treatment plan. The last thing I would want is to talk to some robot in cyberspace. The Minister of State needs to get real. He needs to concentrate on providing a full service to children and adolescents whereby these children and their families can access real help on the ground and meet with a health professional face-to-face, and not wait months on end for appointments. If the mental health service on the ground is running efficiently and meeting the patient's needs, maybe the Government could then look at investing in some sort of cyberspace app. For now, it needs to look at the service being provided on the ground and to make sure families are being seen to in a timely manner.

I cannot stand here today without mentioning my support for the psychiatric nurses and the other nurses and midwives. Some 6,000 members of the Psychiatric Nurses Association have been left with no option but to engage in industrial action. These nurses will refuse to work overtime today and tomorrow in a dispute over pay and staffing. The Government is putting its head in the sand but it needs to wake up and realise the problems with recruitment and retention of nurses will not go away. The Government needs to co-operate with nurses and listen to their concerns.

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