Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

At the end of February, on Leaders' Questions, I raised the case of Maggie, a ten-year-old child in desperate need of mental health support. Maggie has endured cancer and suffers from depression, anxiety and self-injurious behaviour. She is in very serious distress and does not leave the house except to go to school. Maggie was on an urgent list for over a year before getting a CAMHS meeting. An assessment for intellectual disability followed but she was not accepted into the service because there is no specialist in her area. Now Maggie is in a mental health crisis because she has not received the care and support she so badly needs. Maggie's distraught mother came to the Oireachtas yesterday pleading for help for her daughter. She came here in February to make the same plea, but nothing has changed since. Maggie is still not getting the care for which her mother has fought so hard and for so long, and she is not alone.

Maggie's mother was in the Oireachtas yesterday attending the launch of a report by Families for Reform of CAMHS, a group of more than 1,200 families whose children have been denied the services of CAMHS or who have not received sufficient care. The report will be published tomorrow but the group's presentation laid bare the full-blown emergency in the provision of child and adolescent mental health care. The report describes the dramatic increase in waiting lists, with so many children waiting more than a year to be accepted to CAMHS. The vast majority say their children deteriorated while waiting. Children with a dual diagnosis of an intellectual disability or autism and mental health difficulties, or those with ADHD, suicidal ideation or eating disorders, are sent from pillar to post in search of support.

Many parents report taking their children to the emergency department to receive care. A staggering 69% of those parents surveyed have been forced to seek private care. This places a really unfair and massive financial burden on parents, and many simply cannot afford it. One parent quoted in the report stated it breaks their heart to think what kind of life their daughter could have had if she had not been thrown on the scrap heap because her parents could not afford an earlier diagnosis. The parent suggests earlier diagnosis might have made a difference but that this will never be known.

These children and their families are crying out for help. They spend years knocking on the door of a system that is broken. Vulnerable children fall through ever-widening cracks. Tá cúram meabhairshláinte do leanaí agus do dhaoine óga i ngéarchéim. Caithfidh an Rialtas beart fiúntach a dhéanamh chun deireadh a chur leis an scannal atá le seirbhísí.

I would like the Taoiseach to intervene directly at this point to ensure Maggie gets the care she needs. I would like him to make that commitment to her mother today. I ask for meaningful action to fix the broken system. The first step has to be lifting the recruitment embargo so CAMHS teams can be filled and waiting lists tackled with urgency. I also want the Taoiseach to legislate to give the Mental Health Commission the statutory power to regulate CAMHS. I ask that the Taoiseach's colleague, the Minister of State with responsibility for mental health, meet representatives of Families for Reform of CAMHS, study their report, hear their views and bring about the changes they are asking for.

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