Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Ward for raising this important motion and addressing this important issue. Many have cited the enormous need, mostly unmet, for mental health services and the unacceptable circumstances in which thousands of people are waiting for assessments of need much longer than the three months within which they are supposed to be assessed by right and the three months thereafter, within which they are supposed to get services. People are waiting many months and sometimes for more than a year to get the services. Indeed, they do not get them at all in some cases.

Two thousand five hundred children are waiting for CAMH services and 8,893 children are waiting for primary care psychology. As of January 2021, 3,345 adults have been waiting for counselling treatment. There is a lack of 24-7 emergency services. Reports indicate the effects of the lack of services, staff and so on. There is a report in one newspaper today — I have heard many stories of this — that refers to the overmedicating of children to compensate for the lack of psychology services, occupational therapy, and speech and language therapy. These problems become worse because there is no early intervention. Without assessment and services at a young age, these problems become intractable, permanent problems that cost the individuals affected far more when they get older and cost our society in general far more.

The point on eating disorders has been made by others. My office was talking to one of the young women whose story has been circulated. Her eating disorder is so severe and she is begging to get into hospital but you literally cannot do so unless you are at death's door or have the money to go private. Shockingly, millions of euros are allocated but not actually spent. The money for eating disorder services, not having been spent initially, has been suspended. The point I want to make on all this, which others have rehearsed, is that there is a desperate, urgent need for these services that has been magnified by Covid, resulting in a 66% increase in eating disorders, for example.

What do we need to address these issues? We need trained professionals. One would think, given the desperate need for these services, that we would be doing everything to train professionals.

I made this point to the Taoiseach a couple of weeks ago in regard to psychologists in particular. Are we making it easier for people to become qualified and to get doctorates in psychology? No, quite the opposite. We are making it very difficult, with MA fees of between €8,000 and €15,000, such that many people who study for MA degrees do so in the Netherlands because it is cheaper to do it there. Then, when a student has got through that, he or she has to complete a certain number of placement hours, which is very difficult to do, and there is the cost of travelling on placement, which may be unpaid such as in the case of student nurses and midwives. If someone wants to study for a doctorate in counselling and educational psychology, there is no funding whatsoever. Students have to pay €15,000 in fees per year for three years and work an unpaid placement, which is nearly full time, as well as doing all the study, seeing clients and so on. People who are trying to study educational and counselling psychology are living in poverty and many of them drop out. About 45% of students training to be psychologists say they want to leave the country altogether, such are the horrendous conditions.

In clinical psychology, there is some funding but the number of places is pathetic. In 2020, there were 52 placements for doctorates in psychology, with hundreds of students who have undergraduate degrees, MA degrees and loads of training under their belt chasing only 52 places. They cannot get on the courses because there are not enough places. Furthermore, there are 402 fewer psychologists than was recommended in A Vision for Change in 2006. We are not putting the resources into supporting young people who want to become psychologists and to help address the mental health crisis. We are making it difficult for them and we are grossly understaffed and under-resourced to meet the desperate needs that exist in this area.

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