Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail)

I certainly will drive it on, and it is an area that has been identified as needing youth mental health supports. However, all areas of the county need youth mental health supports. Some 2% of young people will need the support of CAMHS but 98% of young people - about a third of them - will need counselling and low-level supports so they can deal with anxiety, depression and the challenges they have with body image and social media challenges. All of that is huge. There are a lot of parents in the Dáil who will understand how difficult it can be, having young teenagers and young adults as children. Approximately €110 million of the mental health budget this year is being provided to various community-based mental health organisations and NGOs, including Jigsaw. Jigsaw already receives more than €14 million from the HSE under a service level agreement to provide youth mental health services. I have reached out to other organisations as well, because I have to provide supports in a good few communities and I have to try to get value for money. It does not matter to me who delivers the service once we have a good service, fit for purpose, and where the clinical governance is in place. I have identified four areas, which are Waterford and the south east, the Clare area, the Kildare area and the Cavan-Monaghan area, which is really important.

It is important that we acknowledge some of the supports that have come into the areas. As Minister of State, I introduced the model of care for our crisis resolution services. We now have a crisis resolution team operating in Waterford. It is currently working 9 to 5. I hope we will soon be moving to 3 to 11, Thursday to Monday, which is the model of care for crisis resolution teams. The most important thing with a crisis resolution team is that it is operational when other services are not there. We will also have a solace café opening very shortly in the city. That will be operated by Aware. It was previously known as a crisis cafe, but we changed the name. We know the café in Galway has reduced by 18% the number of people presenting to accident and emergency with mental health difficulties. I am fully committed to delivering this service for Waterford and I am happy to work with the Deputies.

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