Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I want to make a few comments, having listened intently to the debate. I have reviewed some of the core documents about implementation of Sharing the Vision and of CAMHS, as well as the report itself, during the debate. I want to make a few quick points. I thank colleagues. I have found this debate useful. It shows that Dáil Éireann can work well when we are united on a common goal, which we are on this matter. Our goal is to have the best possible services for people who need them, which they can get as quickly as possible. The full answer to that lies in these reports, which are the implementation plans for Sharing the Vision, and Sharing the Vision itself. As I said, part of the answer is CAMHS, but much of the answer lies outside CAMHS, including prevention, lower acuity care and early intervention.

There has been much talk about recruitment and retention. Some 10,500 people work in mental health services, with an extra 500 having been added in the time of this Government. There has been a flurry of additional recruitment activity recently, led by the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, who has really pressed the system to get moving on many hundreds of sanctioned posts that were not being actioned and recruited for to our satisfaction. The higher specialist training posts, for non-consultant hospital doctors to go on to become psychiatrists, have to be expanded.

They were expanded last year, when the number rose from 22 to 46. That was in one year so there has been a big increase and we will continue to go further. My view is we need to double college places for healthcare professionals. It is something that I am working on with the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science and I have met several universities about this. We must have a strong pipeline of new healthcare professionals coming forward. The new consultant contract will help. It is a very attractive contract. It will help to hire the very best people. The NCHD task force is going well to make sure that NCHDs have what they need in their training. Deputy Ward raised the issue of panels earlier, and I agree with him. There is work to be done on the panels. They are not working as well as they need to in this and many other areas.

The second point I want to make is on waiting lists. Quite rightly, Deputies have been focusing on the 4,000 children who are waiting. Importantly, 1,500 are waiting less than 12 weeks. They are all of concern, but the greatest concern is for those who have been waiting more than 12 months, of whom there are 579, and those waiting between three and 12 months, of whom there are around 1,800. The Minister of State and I, along with the HSE, will focus intently to drive down the number of those waiting too long. We have had success in other areas. Over the past year and a half, the total number of people waiting for an outpatient appointment for more than 18 months has dropped by 50%. The numbers waiting more than 12 months have dropped by 40%. These are big falls, because we have been targeting the long waiters. We will do that here too.

The final matter to which I will refer is political will. One or two Deputies asked whether there is political will to deal with this issue. I will make a few points in this regard. The Government is absolutely committed to ensuring that we have the best possible healthcare services for children, adolescents and adults. That is why one of the we have a Minister of State with responsibility for mental health and older people. The Minister of State, Deputy Butler, has succeeded in increasing the mental health budget by €200 million in the lifetime of this Government. The overall budget has risen from €1 billion to €1.2 billion. Do we need to go further? Of course we do. However, a 20% increase in just three budgets is significant. This speaks to the Minister of State's and the Government's prioritisation of this matter.

It was the Minister of State who sought this report. The Mental Health Commission can report on whatever it wants. It agreed that it would compile this report, and that is its choice, but it was the case that the Minister of State actively sought it. The Minister of State wanted to ensure that a light was shone on these issues. She fought very hard and succeeded in securing a full national audit on medication in the aftermath of the Maskey report and other issues.

I work very closely with the Minister of State and I assure that House that she is pushing the HSE very hard. She is pushing it harder at times than the HSE would like. She is seeking these detailed reviews and big increases in funding and pushing for recruitment in order to ensure that we have the money, staff and strategy that are required and that, through our work in this area, we know where the challenges lie. In knowing where those challenges lie, we can all work together in this House to meet them.

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