Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

All I can say is that the parents who come to me who are having issues accessing CAMHS for their children are, in many cases, are going through a nightmare. Even now, after all of the stories I have been told, I cannot get my head around the shambles and the mess the system seems to be in. I do not claim to be an expert, because I think the people who truly are experts are the parents who are struggling to access diagnoses and services for their children and who are getting pushed from pillar to post in a system that seems to be failing chronically.

I will relay some of the latest stuff in this regard. It was probably referred to earlier in the debate. I am sure the Minister of State is familiar with the Families for Reform of CAMHS. What that group is arguing, as the Minister of State knows, is that we need reform of CAMHS and we need the Mental Health Commission to have reviews of CAMHS every year. I certainly support this in order that there will be some sort of review and monitoring of the ability of CAMHS to deliver. In my limited understanding of this, I am of the view that goes further. What I think is lacking are a holistic view and a holistic service. From the tales of woe I am being told by parents, I understand that there is a situation whereby if you have autism, that becomes an excuse for you to be turned away from CAMHS and sent towards the child and disability network teams. However, the child and disability network teams do not have the resources or the capacity to deal with many of the people sent to them. The idea that there is a strict demarcation line between mental health, the CAMHS remit and autism, which is the child and disability network team, is just not the case. In reality, those with autism are substantially more likely to develop mental issues precisely because the services are not available or, in general, because having autism makes them more susceptible to mental health issues. The child and disability network teams do not have the staffing required, and they do not have psychiatrists. Psychiatrists only deal with mental health when the people sent to the child and disability network teams have a dual diagnosis of autism and mental health issues. There is another subdivision for children with intellectual disabilities who are sent to the CAMHS-ID teams. According to A Vision for Change, there were supposed to be 16 of these teams. Families for Reform of CAMHS states that there are only a handful. In many areas, they do not exist. A person cannot be referred to the teams that do exist if he or she lives in a particular area. This is a mess. It seems to be a mess created using different bits of services that are unable to cope because they do not have the staff. We are pushing the problem around. The net result is that people are just not getting the services they need. That is what seems to be happening. There is a real struggle and, in some cases, dangerous situations for parents. These children really need the services. Parents are not able to cope, and we can end up with quite dangerous situations. It is very bad for the children and for the families.

Another aspect I have come across in our area is that it seems the child and disability network teams are unable to recruit because the employment conditions and pay of the people who work in those teams are not uniform across all of them. In our area, CHO 6, they are section 39 workers. It is much harder to attract people to work for these services, as against people who are treated as public sector workers with the HSE, for example. This is bonkers. The ability to recruit to absolutely critical services is fragmented and it is easier to recruit them in some areas than others because pay and conditions are different. That does not make any sense. We need a holistic view of services, and not services siloed in this way with imaginary demarcation lines. We need decent and uniform pay and conditions for the people who work in these services if we are going to recruit the professionals we need to provide the services to all who need them.

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