Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I was present earlier when my party leader, Deputy McDonald, questioned the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, about the Government's approach to all of this and he proceeded to read out statistics in soft language. I want to testify to the reality in my home county of Donegal for children with mental health challenges. We have a defective block crisis. It has been described as an earthquake happening in slow motion. A huge number of homes are affected, 1,000 private and public houses, and that can be multiplied by seven, eight or nine, so it is 8,000 or 9,000 in reality. The Minister of State knows the population of Donegal and she can figure out the percentage of the population that is impacted by this. It is devastating. Can she imagine the impact on families, given the realisation that all of their hard work, all of their savings and everything else is falling apart?

We have a major mental health crisis. People took their own lives because of this crisis, and some of it has been documented and some of it has not. What supports have been put in place for children? Supports have been requested again and again by the Donegal Education and Training Board and by campaign groups but there has been nothing substantial or additional for those families. That is the reality on the ground.

With regard to a recent development that has been raised with the Minister of State, we have a pastoral centre counselling service. These are tremendous people who are offering their services at a much reduced rate because they see the gaps. They stepped up and they wanted to provide a service. Some of the service was funded through fundraising by families who lost children and the campaigns and funding efforts are named after the children. They stepped in due to the absence of State provision of services. They were getting some supports from Tusla and the HSE but they were getting no supports in terms of clinical oversight. For example, they had asked for a director of counselling, and we know of the failure of clinical oversight within the CAMHS system in parts of Ireland. Here, professionals were offering that but they had no administrative support.

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