Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle. I take it the lads have simmered down now.

Grainne Gault is due to protest at the gates of the Dáil this afternoon. On St. Patrick's Day last year, Grainne lost her beautiful 14 year old daughter Elisha to suicide. In the wake of Elisha's death, Grainne and her family have been incredibly courageous. She and the group, Mental Health Warriors, have voiced their concerns about the state of mental health supports and provisions for children and adolescents. Ms Gault kept Elisha's Facebook page open as a place where distressed young people could come for help and support. Sadly, Elisha's story is not an isolated case. Many of our young people today struggle with mental health difficulties and, more generally, we also have a serious mental health crisis in our country. The rate of death by suicide is frightening. Over the last two years, 744 people died by suicide. That is 744 families such as the Gaults who now live with an unbearable loss every day. We need a unified approach and common purpose in mental health, right across the political spectrum. In that spirit, I must tell the Taoiseach that his Government is failing to deliver adequate mental health services. Despite all the talk and nice words, we are not seeing real improvements in services. While talking helps one's mental health and it is good and necessary to talk, it is the Government's responsibility to back that up with services.

The Government's failure is most evident in the child and adolescent mental health service, CAMHS, which is on its knees. It is crumbling while families and communities cry out for help, which the Government is not providing. Staffing shortages have led to CAMHS beds lying empty and children waiting months for mental healthcare. In August, 2,440 children were waiting for mental health services. Half of those children were waiting at least 12 weeks to be seen, while 748 were waiting six months. That is far too long to wait when a young person's health, and possibly life, hangs in the balance.

There is also a problem with children being admitted to adult mental health units. My colleague, Deputy Cullinane, highlighted the fact that eight children were admitted to adult facilities in 2018 in Waterford alone. Capacity is not matching the scale of need. The targets set in A Vision for Change in 2009 are not yet being met, over a decade later. In last week's budget, the Government announced a paltry and pathetic €14 million in new money for all mental health services. Providing a seven-day outpatient model for CAHMS would cost just over €3 million, which is almost a quarter of the Government's inadequate allocation of new money. The 2020 budget represented a real opportunity for the Government to do better on mental health services, which it could have seized. Having failed to do so, I ask the Taoiseach to seize that opportunity now and commit to delivering the necessary investment that families like the family of Elisha, whose mother Grainne will be at the gates this afternoon, expect and deserve.

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