Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It goes without saying that we are disappointed by what happened to Deputy Ward's legislation on the regulation of CAMHS. The Minister of State has heard many Deputies, and will hear many more, refer to the necessity of such regulation. We were not shocked, but I am not sure we are willing to accept the Bill being kicked down the road. That is done to many Bills, but we all accept that CAMHS deals with young people and families that are in the worst of circumstances and, sometimes, in the darkest part of their lives. I do not know how many times the House has discussed early intervention and how we will tackle issues. Sometimes, we end up repeating the exact same speeches. That is a pity.

Something else we do is talk in statistics. Unfortunately, I am going to do a bit of that myself. The most recent figure we have for the number on the CAMHS waiting list in CHO 8, which includes County Louth, is 695, of whom 115 have been waiting more than 52 weeks. Obviously, those are at the more serious end. The figure of 695 is an incredible increase on the 270 that were on the list in July 2020. I wish to put on the record the large amount of work that is done by those in mental health services, particularly child and youth mental health services, while accepting that people experience considerable issues in accessing those services.

A number of Deputies have referred to the silo problem that we constantly discuss, that of disability services and mental health services not crossing over. At a recent committee meeting, Mr. Bernard Gloster and some of his team spoke about the autism protocol that is currently in play. While we all welcome that, Mr. Adam Harris met the autism committee earlier and spoke about the significant issues that still exist in the real world, in that CAMHS will at times refuse those with a diagnosis of autism. Having the protocol is all well and good, but we need to get down to brass tacks and deliver for people. There are pilot schemes under the no wrong door policy and so on, but even if the autism protocol were mentioned in rules and regulations, it is not much good to people if it is not implemented.

I had a case that I had dealt with previously but I had never met the child. The mother brought the child to me to humanise their circumstances and, in fairness, she got across her frustration with the situation. The kid has a diagnosis of autism but is also dealing with severe anxiety. There has been interaction and CAMHS has agreed to a consultation, so I hope I will not need to revert to the Minister of State on the case. We are seeing the autism protocol in operation, but I am still hearing of cases where it is not in effect. I will chase them up.

Where do we stop and start in this regard? I do not know how many interactions we have had to deal with food disorders, just to pick one issue, and to ensure that sufficient resources are in play, services do not depend on where someone lives, places are free and we can deliver for children and their parents at an early stage. We all realise that many cases, if addressed at a very early stage, can probably be dealt with more simply and the interventions are much less costly. It is just a matter of us getting to that point. I accept that there is a great deal to do in terms of workforce planning, having all of the necessary people in position in our mental health services and dealing with the impact of people not wanting to work in what is a difficult sector. If we cannot deliver the perfect system straight away, though, then we must see what we can deliver in the short term while working towards something that is far more beneficial.

Five minutes, ten minutes or 15 minutes, we could speak on this for hours. What we need to see is this issue being tackled and a solution being provided that delivers for these children, young adults and families. In light of what Deputy Ward said about people ageing out and what we all say about adult services, we cannot have people falling off the edge of a cliff.

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