Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

What we have seen in south Kerry recently indicated the challenges facing young people in securing the appropriate mental health services in a system that has not been designed around their needs. The lack of resources and the poor roll-out of mental health supports in general, but particularly for young people, has been well known for some time. It has been made worse by a lack of urgency on the part of the Government, which says it is difficult to find the psychologists, occupational therapists, speech and language therapists and so on that the HSE South East told me last week are being sought in my constituency. This is what happens when, for decades, understaffing and under-resourcing have made it an unattractive prospect. It is a problem of the Government’s own making.

We see the State relying on the community and voluntary sector to make up for the shortfall in counselling and therapy services by expecting them to be able to provide their wonderful services for either no funding or for low level, short-term funding at best. We saw astonishing mixed messages about the Jigsaw service in Thurles. We saw how the thousands of people who turned out on the streets of Clonmel to demand that St. Michael’s be retained were ignored. Yet, the Government says it is taken aback by recent events. Give me a break. It is blinkers and ear plugs they have had for the last couple of years.

Last week, I spoke in the House about a 16-year-old girl who is looking for the opportunity to feed into improving mental health services because she was left feeling abandoned. Another person, a mother from Tipperary, told my office that, in her view, her local CAMHS service had an over-reliance on the prescribing of medication to her daughter. There was no referral to counselling, just medication. When they tried to get back in contact with CAMHS about easing the medication for a number of reasons, their calls were not returned for two months. If immediate medication is seen as the stopgap measure that they must revert to until counselling and psychology services are available, then children are continuing to be failed.

In the same health area at end of last year, of the 414 waiting for child psychology services, 32% were waiting more than a year, so there is a clear capacity issue. However, in CHO 5, which includes south Tipperary, the number waiting a year or more, while still too high, is far lower than in the north of the county, so the availability of services is a postcode lottery. This is no way to be treating our children.

All of this has been watched over by this Government and previous ones with the familiar faces that we see on the benches opposite. That is why we are calling for the broadening of the CAMHS review to include capacity deficiencies and geographic inequalities, and to look at whether persistent consultant vacancies have contributed to substandard care. We are also calling for a proactive strategy for the recruitment and retention of psychologists across CAMHS and for the immediate appointment of a national director of mental health in the HSE. The current situation is failing thousands of children and thousands of adults who simply cannot get the support and treatment they need.

I commend Deputy Mark Ward on bringing forward the motion.

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