Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have raised the issue of mental health services in Cork city and surrounding areas with the Minister of State previously. I appreciate that we have had many discussions, but on some occasion I would appreciate if the Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, was in a position to listen to some of these discussions. I appreciate the Minister of State's interest in this area and his desire to tackle it, but this is a massive issue and the community health organisation, CHO, for Cork and Kerry seems to be constantly below other areas in respect of the services provided.

Some of the waiting times people in Cork city and the surrounding areas have been experiencing are outrageous. The point of community services is to reduce the pressure on the acute services. That is the theory of them and the primary care centres. If we look at the kind of waiting times that exist for psychiatry and for psychology and for psychiatry and psychology in child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, it clearly is not succeeding in that regard.

I will start with psychiatry. In some areas, such as in Carrigaline, there is an average waiting time of six months. In response to a parliamentary question I asked on that issue, I was told that there is not a requirement at present to recruit further.

When one considers the pressure under which the primary care centre is, I do not understand why no positions are required. Is that under A Vision for Change or is some other metric being used to determine that? A six-month wait for psychiatry is far too long. Six months is a tortuous length of time to be waiting for any kind of treatment. Anyone who is referred to a psychiatrist is likely to be facing a crisis situation. It is unacceptable that people in the Carrigaline area, which takes in Douglas and Passage for the purposes of the community health area, are waiting six months to be seen by psychiatrists.

The story is similarly grim, even worse, when it comes to psychology services. Some of the psychology waiting times in community settings include nine months for the Ballyphehane-Togher sector, six months for Douglas and Carrigaline and 17 months for Ballincollig-Bishopstown. Again, it was stated there is no requirement for further recruitment. I cannot understand the HSE’s basis for stating these times are acceptable and it does not need to do any more. It is unacceptable.

The story is similarly dreadful for CAMHS, the child and adolescent mental health services. There are 646 children on the waiting list, 192 of whom have been waiting over a year. These are vulnerable children and adolescents with real mental health issues. In many instances, life may hang in the balance. Certainly, welfare hangs in the balance. To put this in context, two years ago it came to national attention that there were spikes in suicide and self-harm in the Cork city area. It is still the case that the Cork city area is way above the national average for suicide among men and self-harm among women. That has been the case for a decade. While mental health is broader and takes in much more than that, clearly investing in psychology and psychiatry in community and CAMHS settings is crucial to assisting people in crisis situations. In that regard, people are being failed when one is looking at psychiatry lists of between six and 17 months. This is unacceptable.

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