Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will follow on from that because it is a very serious issue. One of the impacts of what happened in Kerry during that scandal is that CAMHS started to push children and young people out of the system and back to their GPs. That is the absolute fact of what has happened in the west. The Minister of State should know that and if she does not, she needs to investigate it properly. We have seen a sixfold increase in the number of children on mental health waiting lists in the west, which means six times as many children waiting as when this Government came into power.

This is practical legislation but there are things that need to be done immediately. I ask those in the Government to put their egos to one side and put the young people who are suffering first. Autistic children with serious mental health issues are going untreated. I would not even be able to describe the cases that come across my desk, for example, the way autistic children with mental health difficulties and their families are treated. It includes children with suicidal ideation being turned away from CAMHS and children with intellectual disabilities having no CAMHS service. An immediate response is needed. I ask the Minister of State to look at the family resource centres to see if the Government can put in some funding there. Every day that we come in here, we are told there are millions and millions of euro everywhere but that is not getting to the young people and their families who desperately need support to save their lives in many cases. What is happening is totally wrong.

This Bill is straightforward and is a practical step that can be taken. It provides for the implementation of the first recommendation by the Mental Health Commission. If passed, it would give the commission the powers to implement the other recommendations. This is what families and stakeholders want. We have talked about this for years. I worked in community development myself, as the Minister of State knows, so I know that this has got worse and worse in the past 20 years. It is beyond crisis point at this stage. Please, leave the egos outside the door and put the children and young people first in this case.

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