Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy and express my appreciation to him for withdrawing this matter last week. He had wanted it to be dealt with during Mental health Week but it is every bit as appropriate today. I acknowledge the parents who are at the front gate today. I went out and said hello to them and it is heartbreaking to see parents who have lost their gorgeous children and are wearing T-shirts with pictures of their children on them. They have nothing to gain from improved services but they care enough to try to provoke movement on behalf of other families to spare them the same fate. It is a wake-up call for all of us. None of us can imagine what it is like to be one of the parents at the gates of Leinster House with a picture of their child who was lost to suicide. I acknowledge their bravery and the contribution they are making.

I will not read my script because a lot of it is already on the record and the Deputy is up to speed on the issues. I have gained a good insight into the issues but I do not have all the solutions or a monopoly of wisdom on the right thing to do. Money is a very important part of the service and the Government will respond to this. There has been a 44% increase in funding the past number of years, from €700 million to over €1 billion. I am far more interested, however, in what we are doing with that €1 billion than arguing every day about how much of the €39 million increase is going to pay increases and how much to new developments. I am concerned as to whether we are doing the right thing with the money because throwing another €50 million at it may get me off the hook but I need to be more responsible.

One of the things I have championed are lower-level interventions because that is how I believe we will tackle the waiting list issue which has bedevilled CAMHS for so long. I can throw €3 million or €4 million at a waiting list initiative, as my predecessors have done, but doing that means that, while the numbers initially go down, they come straight back up again as soon as the money is spent. I have tried to structurally reform what we do and how we do it. I have put in a lower level of psychology in the infrastructure. While psychiatry is a specialist intervention, led by a consultant psychiatrist with a highly disciplined team, some 2,000 children are waiting to access the service so 134 psychologists have come into primary care to reach out to children earlier.

The Deputy referenced the helpline and I do not mind people questioning its validity but we should also acknowledge progress when it is made. There are 1,027 different services funded by the HSE and the State but if a person is in trouble, I am not sure they know who to call, whether it is Aware, Pieta House or Jigsaw or some other service.

By calling our phone number, one can access 1,027 services, including face-to-face therapies and complementary therapies. It is about ensuring a lower level of intervention is available such that problems do not escalate to needing psychiatry and medication. That initiative is working. I do not like talking about waiting lists going down because they may go up again tomorrow. That said, since the beginning of the year, there has been a 20% reduction in the waiting list for CAMHS, which is a significant development. More important, the reduction is sustainable. I am not interested in a headline figure of a 20% reduction in the waiting list; I want it to be sustainable. Having the lower level of psychology infrastructure in primary care centres has lessened the demand for CAMHS. The reduction has come at a time when there has been a 24% increase in demand for the services. We must acknowledge what is working while recognising that there is far more we need to do.

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