Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. I share his concerns regarding child and adolescent mental health services. Two days ago, I met the new national clinical lead for CAMHS and the new national director of the youth mental health office, Mr. Donan Kelly, who took up post on 1 September. I am very hopeful that we will see an improvement in the supports that are being provided to young people. The Deputy spoke about an approved centre. We have four inpatient approved centres in the country, two in Dublin, one in Cork and one in Merlin Park, Galway, which are sufficient to provide those type of supports at present.

On out-of-hours services, in the past two months, I announced five new online hubs to support young people but if the Deputy wants to bring specifics to my attention, I will certainly look at them for him.

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