Brendan Griffin (Kerry, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am grateful for being given the opportunity to discuss this matter and I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, for being present. I had the opportunity to raise this matter on Questions on Promised Legislation last Thursday when I referred to the report on south Kerry CAMHS as devastating reading, which it is. At the time, I called for a full Garda investigation into the matter. I am hopeful that progress is being made in that regard. I also made the point that this failure in regard to south Kerry CAMHS has resulted in catastrophic outcomes for some children, which is at odds with the finding of the report, or certainly the wording of the finding of the report. I stand over those comments. I also called for the Government to make sure that every single child and family affected by the failures of CAMHS in south and indeed north Kerry, would immediately receive the care and support they need. I also called for this catastrophic failure for children in both south and north Kerry and throughout the country, never to happen again. We are yet to establish definitely throughout the country whether these failures are occurring, but certainly, anecdotal evidence in recent weeks is pointing to that unfortunate suggestion. That needs to be established immediately, and interventions need to happen without delay.

I will read into the record a brief snip from an email I received this week from a concerned parent. It states:

Dear Brendan, we request immediate support. The CAMHS south Kerry LBR report was sent to us on Wednesday last and we have been left entirely alone to process the findings. We need support. We need immediate access to a consultant child psychiatrist, and not anyone from within CAMHS Kerry. Our kids have ongoing needs and we are extremely dissatisfied with the level of so-called support they are receiving.

That was just this week. When we hear in the public domain that supports are being provided to families, that interventions are there, quite clearly this is not the only case but this is an example of the type of contact I am receiving this week, and I am sure other public representatives are also receiving. This needs to be addressed immediately. I call for an intensification of efforts to ensure that the children and families impacted by this gross failure in south and indeed north Kerry are addressed immediately and that the professional support that is quite clearly required by these families is provided. It is just not good enough that any family or child would feel alone, particularly at this time, after everything we have learned.

In the brief time I have left, I want to raise the issue of the recruitment process. Alarm bells surely must be ringing within the HSE in that this is another example of an appalling situation where the work of a professional medic has resulted in terrible outcomes for patients in Kerry. We know that in recent years we had the scandal in the radiology department in University Hospital Kerry. Around the same time we had the start of this particular failure in CAMHS. I ask the Minister of State, are the recruitment processes within the HSE being examined? It seems that the wrong people and totally inappropriate people are being appointed to these very responsible positions. This is another example of a gross failure. Is it going to be examined?

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