Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I made most of my comments in the opening piece. I would like to begin by thanking everyone who has been here today. I know for a fact that were Deputy Verona Murphy not in the Chair, she would have been sitting over there and would have stood up and spoken as well. It is no surprise to me who spoke here today because everybody who did so constantly raises issues about mental health with me. It is probably in sharp contrast to what we saw last Tuesday week, when there was a big affray on the Order of Business when everybody sought time to speak about mental health. I think, however, that Thursday evenings softens it a lot as many Members return to their constituencies. I am not one bit surprised by those who spoke here today because they constantly raise mental health issues week in and week out. I will always welcome the opportunity to come to the Chamber and discuss mental health. We cannot talk enough about it. There is no health without mental health.

The other thing I want to put on the record, because I was struck by how Deputy Boyd Barrett spoke about a more holistic approach and the different things we can do, is that while only 2% of children may need the support of CAMHS, there are another 98% of children out there. I am working really hard with the Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, on what Deputy Lowry raised with regard to the challenges of media, bullying, online bullying and all of that. It has a huge impact.

This morning, in between being here for Oral Questions and then coming back to the House, I spoke at the family resource centres' national conference. I want to commend family resource centres the length and breadth of the country, which do phenomenal work with families and children who have difficulties.

As it is Eating Disorders Awareness Week, I wish to acknowledge that more than €8 million has been allocated to eating disorders in recent years and we now have more than 100 whole-time equivalents, that is, 100 people working in eating disorder teams and they have been recruited. Funding has enabled the set-up of 11 teams to date. Sometimes, people ask me what I have achieved as a Minister of State. When I took office almost four years ago we had one eating disorder team and we now have 11. We have six adult and five CAMHS eating disorder teams at various stages of development. Unfortunately, recruitment of a multidisciplinary team can take up to between 12 and 18 months but we are making a lot of progress. I was going through this yesterday with the team and I thank them for all the support they give me, the team in the Department as well as those in the HSE. We were looking at the additional €10 million I secured recently and how it could be spent. I want to give every Deputy here an insight into what I am looking at. All the spend will be from a geographical point of view. It is really important that we look at each area, see exactly where the gaps are and put staff into the areas and not always just go into the larger areas of population. I think that is really important.

I thank everyone for being here. I have listened and taken note of everything people have said. With regard to the Bill that came before the House on Tuesday night, I set out clearly the reasons, including the legal advice I had received, for why it could not work. If it was only a matter of two amendments to the 2001 Bill it would have been changed a long time ago but the forthcoming mental health Bill not only has 35 sections related to compliance for CAMHS, it has another 130 sections as well, so it is a huge piece of work. I have been briefed on it week by week for a long time. It will take a while to roll through the Dáil, the Seanad and the Oireachtas committee.

I agree with Deputy Buckley with regard to the mental health committee. I wrote to the Ceann Comhairle before it was disbanded asking for it to be retained as I thought it was really important as well.

I thank everyone for their time.

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