Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I believe everybody in this House is only too aware of the challenges in respect of mental health. We see people facing such challenges in our own families, in our communities and in our constituencies. People regularly come to the House to talk about the level of need, particularly unmet need, that exists. That has been going on for some time. The real test of people's commitment to prioritising this area comes at budget time. That is how we show how serious we are about mental health services. To be serious means providing the necessary funding at budget time. In addition, in the particular circumstances we are in at the moment and in light of the very significant additional need arising from the pressures, stresses and anxieties of Covid, the demand for additional funding and additional services will be all the greater. That has to be part of the medium-term plan to be published next week. It is just as valid a need to be met as any other need contained within that plan. I certainly hope that, in addition to a clear roadmap to restarting all of the other health services that have been put on hold, mental health services will be given priority within the plan.

In recent years, what we have seen with regard to funding and recruitment has largely been smoke and mirrors. For as long as I can remember, there has been wrangling in this House about whether money has been fully spent in a particular year. Looking back over recent years, approximately €50 million less than was committed to by successive Governments was delivered. Money was not ring-fenced. We are therefore starting from a position where there has been a shortfall of approximately €50 million. In addition to this are the additional pressures arising from Covid.

Earlier this week, the chief operations officer of the HSE, Ms Anne O'Connor, made a statement in which she made it very clear that there had been a significant increase in the number of referrals to mental health services, especially among older people and children. This is a massive concern because these services were very much overstretched before the pandemic. As others have said, at the beginning of the year 2,000 children were on the waiting list for CAMHS. We can quote figures. I have the figures for the psychological services here. As of last May, there were more than 10,000 children, adults and older people on waiting lists for psychology services. A waiting list of three months is the maximum one would see in most other countries. Let us even take out the impact of Covid and look at what is happening with regard to psychology services.

In children from zero to four years of age - cases of infant mental health problems - and taking out, as I said, the first three months, there are currently 798 infants waiting more than three months for psychological services. There has been much talk about what is happening at the moment in education with the leaving certificate and so on. We know children in particular are under huge pressure due to Covid. Before Covid even started however, the number of children and teenagers waiting for psychology services was 5,600. That is 5,600 teenagers and children waiting more than three months for psychology services. In the adult age group, 18 to 64 years of age, the figure is less startling; it is about 1,500. It then drops again for older people. However, it is indefensible that we have a situation like that where teenagers, children and infants - almost 7,000 people in total - are waiting for psychology services for more than three months, and that was before Covid. This is an absolute national crisis. We need the funding to be put in place urgently and we depend on the Minister of State to deliver that.

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