Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Mental health remains the poor relation in the health service. The health service overall is an omnishambles. Cost overruns were estimated at approximately €400 million based on current figures at the meeting of the Committee of Public Accounts last week at which the director general of the HSE appeared. The Department of Health has always been starved of the resources it needs. That is what leads to statistics such as being 2,671 staff short of what was envisaged in A Vision for Change, a policy that is now 13 years old. We are not taking the issue of mental health seriously enough. The 1916 Proclamation is made a mockery of in terms of the treatment of children. Children are not treated equally. Some are treated far more equally than others depending on whether there is cash in their parents' pockets or they have access to private care. These Houses turn out report after report without any thought of implementation, costs or resources to ensure that we get the services we need.

There are only three or four hospital-based child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, units, with none in the north west. We do not have 24-7 CAMHS care, which is unacceptable. The annual report of the Mental Health Commission highlighted that 40% of approved centres were not compliant with regulation 15, which relates to individual care plans. That is shocking in the extreme. Of the 27 centres that continued to use seclusion in 2018, 67% were non-compliant with the rules, while of the 52 approved centres that used physical restraint during the year, just 19% were compliant.

It is a damning indictment of all Members of this House that in each debate on mental health we bemoan the fact that we are failing miserably all people with mental health needs, particularly children. I ask the Minister of State, Deputy Jim Daly, who is present, to be honest with the House and tell us how badly he, his colleagues and officials are being treated in terms of the provision of adequate resources to put the correct governance in place, get an adequate number of staff and attract them from abroad if necessary, although I cannot imagine why we would have a problem recruiting and training our own staff, and ensure that we move to 24-7 CAMHS services as a matter of the utmost urgency along with the provision of a full-time unit in the north west, similar to those located elsewhere in the country.

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