Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, across the State are in disarray. We can all agree on that. Every Deputy knows patients and families struggling to access appropriate care and help for themselves and their loved ones and children. We are all aware of the inadequate staffing levels across CAMHS that make it impossible for the services to meet demand.

Approximately 2,560 children and young adults are on the CAMHS waiting list. Those 2,560 are being failed. Almost 300 of them have been waiting for more than a year to be seen. These figures are shocking and unacceptable, and this situation needs to be addressed. Early intervention is crucial, but early interventions in mental health cases are not possible when there are extensive waiting lists and a sheer lack of capacity within the system. CAMHS is not meeting the needs of a large cohort of our children and young adults. The situation has been this way for far too long.

Children and young adults who are desperately in need of care and help and who are reaching out for same are not getting the appropriate support in a timely manner. This is primarily due to the failure to recruit the staff needed to operate CAMHS teams. Some services are operating on barely half the number of staff identified in A Vision for Change. When that policy was launched, it was supposed to be a ten-year plan. It is 12 years since it was launched, though, and it has ceased to have any real meaning because it has been left unimplemented for so long.

In my area of CHO 1, which includes Cavan, Monaghan and the north west, there are ten vacant CAMHS posts and 240 children who are waiting to be seen. This is not acceptable. The Tánaiste knows that, given that the situation in his area is even worse. In CHO 4, which covers Cork and Kerry, 650 young people are on the waiting list, and more than 100 of them have been waiting for longer than a year to be seen and supported in respect of their mental health. It is little wonder that this is the case in Cork and Kerry, given that CHO 4's staffing is at roughly 56% of the recommended level. Approximately 74 CAMHS positions are vacant in Cork and Kerry. This is shocking and confirms the serious lack of capacity in the system.

In the interests of our children, we cannot allow this situation to persist. Where children or young persons need care and help, they cannot be forced to stay on an extended waiting list that puts them and their mental health at serious risk.

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