Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We have bucked the trend in recruitment when it comes to mental health services. In 2021, a total of 659 people were working in CAMHS, whereas at the moment, there are 820. It is an area in which we have done well to recruit where posts have been available. By the end of next year, 900 whole-time equivalents will be working across the 75 CAMHS teams. Notwithstanding that, there are difficulties, but I am delighted to say the waiting list fell to 3,900 during the course of the summer. The latest figures are for the end of August and it will be interesting to see how they continue to come down.

Turning to year-on-year funding for mental health services, the budget for CAMHS is €137 million, but we also support NGOs to the tune of €108 million. A lot of that relates to youth mental health organisations such as Jigsaw, SpunOut, Turn2me, Pieta, Barnardos and Shine.

See this speech in context