Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have been asked to take this Topical Issue by the Minister of State, Deputy Butler. She apologises that she could not be here this morning. Funding for mental health increased to more than €1.3 billion in 2024. This is the fourth consecutive year of an increase for mental health services and highlights the importance this Government places on the mental health of those living in Ireland. CAMHS is a specialist service for children or adolescents with a moderate to severe mental health difficulty. Evidence shows that only 2% of children and young people need the support of CAMHS teams. Access to CAMHS is on the basis of prioritised clinical assessment, with all referrals assessed by a multidisciplinary team. CAMHS receives approximately €146.5 million in dedicated funding annually, while approximately €110 million is provided to community-based mental health organisations or NGOs each year to deliver supports and services, a significant proportion of which is dedicated to supporting young people. It remains a priority of the Government to improve access to CAMHS and reduce waiting lists. This includes a number of measures such as better links with primary care and disability services and greater use of e-mental health responses.

There continues to be a growing demand for CAMHS, with 77 community teams nationally delivering around 225,000 appointments for children and young people annually. Between 2020 and 2021, referral rates to CAMHS increased by 33%, while the number of new cases seen increased by 21% in the same period. Provisional HSE data shows that last year there were 5.2% more referrals accepted to CAMHS and 12% more CAMHS appointments offered to children than in 2022. Overall, 91% of new or re-referred cases were seen within 12 months in community CAMHS services in 2023. There were 3,583 children on the CAMHS waiting list in April 2024, which represents a decrease of 778 compared with 4,361 in April 2023. Approximately 95% of urgent referrals to CAMHS in April were responded to within 72 hours. Staffing in community CAMHS increased from around 389 whole-time equivalents in 2011 to around 820 posts at present. This has been augmented by 68 new posts allocated under budget 2024 and more than 60 new posts under the €10 million recently announced by the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, for clinical programmes and youth mental health.

There are a number of initiatives under way to address waiting lists for child and youth mental health services. This includes €3 million in new funding for 2024 to address waiting lists in CAMHS. Additional funding has been allocated to the HSE to improve the validation of CAMHS waiting list data and improving data quality. Continued waiting list action plan funding of €5 million this year will target removals of more than 3,000 young people from the primary care child psychology services wait list. Addressing primary care waiting lists helps to alleviate pressures on the specialist CAMHS service. CAMHS inpatient bed capacity is 72 beds nationally but currently, due to a range of issues, 51 beds are operational. The HSE is making every effort to address recruitment and other challenges and restore the number of operational beds to 72. As of 18 June, the waiting list nationally to access units was zero. Of the available 51 beds, 24 were occupied on that same date, leaving 27 staffed and readily available to accommodate an admission.

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