Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

CAMHS are in utter disarray. At the end of 2018, approximately 2,560 children and young adults were on the CAMHS waiting list and almost 300 of them had waited for more than a year to be seen. In my CHO area, which includes Limerick, approximately 245 children and young people are on waiting lists for assessments, while 60 of them have waited for more than a year. As the Minister of State will know, early intervention is crucial but early intervention in mental health cases is not possible when there are extensive waiting lists and a sheer lack of capacity within the system. Children and young adults desperately in need of care and help, who are reaching out for same, are not receiving in a timely manner the appropriate support they need.

The current situation is totally unacceptable. We cannot approach every year in the same vein by paying lip service to mental health services rather than properly funding them or, more crucially, staffing them properly. Will the Minister of State commit to tackling the issue and providing the funding and staffing for CAMHS teams to meet at least the target set out in A Vision for Change?

See this speech in context