Mark Ward (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Some of the challenges we have relate to our waiting lists. I noted Deputy Cullinane was talking about those for children earlier on. I got a couple of parliamentary question responses back this week. At the moment we have 8,832 people waiting on primary care psychology. Of those, 7,849 of these are children and 3,777 of these children are waiting more than 12 months for treatment. There are 302 children aged five years or under waiting more than a year for an appointment. That is almost 20% of their lives they have spent waiting for an appointment for mental health treatment, and we all say early intervention is key. CAMHS has another 2,625 children waiting for appointments, and in excess of 400 of these children are waiting more than six months. In the response, three months for a child to get treatment seems to be a target for getting an appointment with CAMHS. That should not be a target. When a child needs intervention, he or she should be able to get.

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