Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I welcome this debate and the Mental Health Commission's interim report. It makes for very stark reading, to say the least. The issue of no clinical oversight is at the heart of the report. That is what it comes down to. That branches out to underfunding and understaffing, which is an indictment of mental health services for young people.

Young people make up 25% of the population. That is the group that CAMHS provides a service to, yet that cohort of young people only get only 10% of the entire mental health budget. That is also an indictment. Some 90% of the budget is invested in adult services. We have spoken many times in this House regarding spending on mental health budgets. Sláintecare recommends 10% of the overall health budget. Currently, in this country, the figure is probably less than 7%. The WHO recommends 12% so we are well below European standards for overall spends on our mental health services. CAMHS would get five times more funding if expenditure on it was made equivalent to that for adult mental health. That is a fact.

The report is so serious in respect of children's well-being that it warrants an independent inquiry. That inquiry should examine the funding and the staffing of CAMHS in both primary and secondary care. The report finds that staffing levels were to a point almost dangerous. Once there is lack of staff, mistakes will happen right across the board. Also important is the fact that when people are put under serious pressure there is burnout, lack of retention and demoralisation, and that seeps through an organisation. I acknowledge the amazing work those professionals who work in CAMHS provide. They provide an enormously important service. When children get the proper intervention at the proper time, the outcomes are hugely significant for those people. There is hope, positivity and a chance to recover. However, when there are situations such as those referred to in the report, situations which continue, the outcomes will not be very good.

I wish to make a number of points as to what such an inquiry could look like. The prescribing rates and the pressure on parents to accept medication for their children are very important matters. The overprescribing of certain drugs is highly unethical. I am sorry, but no child should be on antipsychotic drugs for years.

That leads to my next point, which is about the failure to provide alternative treatment. It is easy to give a child a medical intervention. There are circumstances where a child needs medical intervention via drugs, but not all the time, and that is very important in the context of the overprescribing of certain medications.

The underfunding of CAMHS, to which I have alluded, is very important. That goes to the heart of the matter, as does the lack of inpatient CAMHS beds in primary care.

Overall, the interim report is most serious in respect of children's health and well-being. If anything can come of the interim report and the issues to which it alludes, it is that they have to be addressed immediately. Otherwise, children - they could be our children or our nephews or nieces - will not get the treatment and intervention they need. Once that does not happen, we will fail all the children in respect of mental health services.

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