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

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, for being present to respond to this issue. This is World Autism Awareness Day. I want to specifically discuss autistic children who require supports provided by mental health services, including CAMHS. The Minister of State was in the Chamber when I raised with the Taoiseach the case of Senan Maguire, a 13-year-old autistic boy from Grange on the Cooley Peninsula. David, Tina and the wider family have all gone through huge stress due to the lack of support. We must try to bridge the gap in some way and, in the long term, put a proper system in place.

This case was also raised in the Sunday Independent the week before last. Senan is 13 years old now. When he was six, he lost his four-year old sister, Sophia, who had Down's syndrome. She was his best friend. He witnessed the attempts by paramedics to resuscitate her. His situation became a lot worse after that, in the sense of issues arising due to him experiencing increased anger, including within the school setting. He is currently out of school. That is something that must be addressed. We all know there is a wider issue relating to school places. Experts have stated that Senan is suffering from post-traumatic syndrome disorder, PTSD.

Unfortunately, the family have gone through a ping-pong scenario, which many other people have experienced, whereby issues are bounced between the CDNT, CAMHS and CAMHS-ID, which deals with intellectual disability. It is always a case of no room at the inn. I tabled two parliamentary questions on the matter - one on 14 February, the reply to which I will read into the record:

Senan Maguire is not currently on the waiting list for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) in Louth as he does not meet the assessment criteria for this team. If his needs have changed since previous referral to CAMHS Louth he can be referred again by his GP.

A CAMHS-ID Consultant has been recruited on a temporary contract. The consultant is not yet in a position to take on a caseload as a multidisciplinary team are not yet in place. Louth Meath Mental Health services are actively working to recruit the additional team members required to complete the multidisciplinary team (MDT) through the Pay & Number Strategy (PNS).

That is a frightening term because we all associate it with the suppression of posts.

Once the CAMHS-ID MDT is in place the GPs and teams in Louth and Meath will be notified and a referral can be made for Senan.

I was informed on 5 March that: "Senan is not currently on the waiting list for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) in Louth." I was again told that "he can be referred again by his GP" and that "A CAMHS-ID Consultant has been recruited ... and services are currently being set up." There is again no timeline. We need this to happen as soon as possible.

We are talking about a situation that has been going on for years. It was raised by Gerry Adams when he was a TD, long before my time. I have buckets of correspondence and I am aware the family has an even greater amount of it. In 2021, when they were dealing with the CDNT, they were promised speech and language therapy, which did not happen. I understand they are getting respite, which is necessary in order that they can focus on other family members. There is a general belief and the family's doctor insists that the child is showing signs of ADHD. In some respects, I would need to have four Ministers to respond in full to the issue I raise, but I ask the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, to deal with the issues that relate to her area of responsibility.

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