Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I wish the Minister of State well in her new role. For far too long mental health issues have been ignored, stigmatised and demonised. What the Minister of State said in her speech was absolutely correct. Many families contacted my office, concerned over the lack of mental health services during the Covid pandemic and asking when they would resume. It is important to have a roadmap for that and I know the Minister of State will do so, which I welcome.

We have half the European average of acute psychiatric beds available and funding for our mental health is half what it is in Europe. We are not investing where we need to. Twenty extra beds were promised to the psychiatric hospitals in the south east in 2018. That did not happen. In my area, eight beds should have been provided in St. Luke's Hospital in Kilkenny. I would really appreciate if the Minister of State could commit to addressing that.

I am glad that the most recent Mental Health Commission report showed that the Department's compliance level increased from 46% in 2017 to 73% in 2019. The Mental Health Commission visiting all these hospitals is very important and will have a significant effect on everybody. The report welcomed the appointment of a support service manager in 2018 to improve things such as hygiene and catering. It also found that everyone was willing to work to monitor and evaluate standards of care and make improvements where possible.

This report, however, also found that services were recorded as being over capacity on several occasions, which is a concern. Coupled with the fact that children are not getting access to age-appropriate services, this really highlights the urgency of the situation. Previous speakers have spoken about child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS. There is a waiting list of two and a half years for CAMHS. I know the Minister of State is aware of this because I spoke to her about it. This is unacceptable. I know she is also aware of another issue because she is working on it. In 2019, in excess of 50 teenagers and adolescents were placed in adult wards in psychiatric units. That is unacceptable. These are the areas in which we need to deliver and this is what we have to do.

The number of admissions is rising, waiting lists are growing and nobody has the resources to deal with these issues. We have seen an enormous rise in mental health issues since this global pandemic first hit and we are going to see things descend into chaos if we do not look at our capacity now. If we are to increase the number of beds, we obviously must increase the number of appropriate staff. One of the biggest issues I see is that of staffing. People wish to use services but the staff are not there. Getting staff will be one of the Minister of State's greatest challenges. That is what we need to do. We need to keep our staff and to get staff into our psychiatric hospitals and services. That was one of the biggest issues I faced.

The final point I will raise with the Minister of State relates to older people. I know how important this issue is. All of us speaking will appreciate how important our elderly people are to us. My elderly mother is at home. She is 85. Covid has been very hard for the elderly. Testing in nursing homes is very important and I know the Minister of State has been working with the Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, in that regard. I work with two section 39 care homes. One is in Carlow and the other is in Bagenalstown. These care homes are like a home from home. There have been significant cuts to funding for section 39 bodies. If we do not fund these homes, I fear that some will close. In fairness, I know the Minister of State is coming to visit one of these homes in Carlow this week but, across the country, keeping these care homes open will be one of our greatest challenges because there does not seem to be funding for them. I thank the Minister of State and wish her well.

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