Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have an update for the Minister on the vaccination centre for Drogheda. I understand that five potential premises were visited on Monday, but I request that we look again at the Drogheda Institute of Further Education, which is effectively a hospital-orientated vaccination centre for high-risk patients in the community. It is urgent that the decision is made now.

The vaccination roll-out is very welcome. I am meeting a lot of very happy people, but I am also hearing about significant and serious concerns expressed by some medical professionals about the impact Covid is having in particular on the child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda. I will compare pre-Covid times to post-Covid times. From January to March 2020, some 47 children were admitted, but between January and March 2021, the number had grown to 74, an increase of 27 additional children and young people. The problem is there is no out-of-hours service after 4 o'clock in the evening. No qualified professional is available to deal specifically with CAMHS issues. Some 72% of admissions occur after hours so there is an urgent need to have more CAMHS staff in the mental health services in hospitals. The most serious point of all is that the average age of the children attending Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda with significant mental health issues has dropped from 16 to 14. That indicates there is a real crisis here. Rolling out the vaccine is one of the keys to the solution, but we need more qualified staff to look after these children.

Another question relates to Dealgan House nursing home where more than 22 people died more than a year ago. The families are still in great distress. They are still being charged €250 or whatever it is for freedom of information requests, almost a year later. That is unacceptable. The main question they have is what is happening to the request for an exceptional inquiry into the deaths. I would like to get an answer to it from the Minister today.

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