Dáil debates
Thursday, 5 March 2026
Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions
Health Services
3:35 am
Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South-Central, Sinn Fein)
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12. To ask the Minister for Health the number of people in the south Lee area awaiting paediatric and juvenile primary care psychology; the number waiting over six months, 12 months and two years; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [17839/26]
Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South-Central, Sinn Fein)
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Primary care psychology for adolescents is a huge issue. I am concerned that sometimes it slips under the radar. This service provides important support, but, unfortunately, from my experience in replies to previous questions, the numbers on the waiting list in south Lee are significant, including over a year for some people.
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy will be aware, primary care psychology provides a broad range of supports and treatment for mild to moderate mental health conditions. HIs concern is particularly the south Lee area, so I might get to that. Currently 2,445 children and young people under the age of 18 are waiting to access primary care psychology in the south Lee area, with 198 waiting for between 26 and 39 weeks, and 1,792 waiting longer than 52 weeks. That is an aberration and should not be the case. It simply has to be improved. Several key initiatives have been deployed by HSE South West to try to improve access to the services. This is having an impact, to be fair. In 2025, 30% more patients were seen in the region compared to 2024. The Deputy and I, however, want that rate of improvement to continue.
Furthermore, the regional director of psychology has established a child psychology service waiting list improvement initiative to drive improvements in accessing key areas such as workforce planning and development for the region, waiting list and capacity solutions and clinical service innovation. Local recruitment, last month and this month, will lead to retaining graduating trainees in permanent posts mapped to primary care and CAMHS and adult mental health services priorities. A number of psychology assistant posts from a new national panel created in December 2025 will be allocated to both the IHA south and west, and north and east to reflect the fact that the longest waiters are in the south Lee and north Lee areas.
We also have the primary care psychology waiting list initiative to try to target. That has had some success since 2021, removing more than 15,000 children from the waiting list nationally. Additionally, we have put in funding of €4.75 million in budget 2026, which will remove a further 3,000 from the national wait list this year, a number of whom will be from the south Lee area. I am not comfortable with the levels of waiting in the area, as I know the Deputy is not, and I expect a continued reduction, as was the case from 2025, which was better than 2024. We do have a lot of work to do.
Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South-Central, Sinn Fein)
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Can the Minister clarify the figure of 198? How many weeks is that in excess of? It was the figure right at the start of the answer.
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I am sorry. I did not hear the Deputy.
Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South-Central, Sinn Fein)
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The Deputy gave a number of 198 people waiting over a certain number of weeks. I did not catch how many weeks it was.
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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There were 1,792 waiting longer than 52 weeks.
Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South-Central, Sinn Fein)
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That is a huge number. It is maybe a slight improvement, but very comparable to what was there before. This time last year about 70% of the posts in primary care psychology were absent. That is not in the reply and I am sure the Minister will not have those numbers in front of her. Part of the problem here is that there is a gap in recruitment. My big concern in relation to primary care psychology is us not making the investment there. The threshold to get into CAMHS now is so high because of the pressure it is under. Therefore, people who are at a relatively high level of suicidal ideation, as well as people dealing with things like ADHD, are not being seen quickly enough and their condition is therefore escalating. The other concern I have, potentially, is with people ageing out, that is, people who reach 18 without having been seen.
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I agree with the Deputy. We increased the number of psychology doctoral training places to 111 at the end of 2025. This was up from 49 places in 2021. It is not just about the doctoral level. We want to create psychology assistant posts too, where we can make sure that people with a master's degree can work to support doctoral-level psychologists to increase workforce expansion. Not everybody has to have a doctorate. People can have a master's degree and still do important psychology work under the supervision of a different level of clinician.
We are trying to find different ways to expand the workforce. Locally, at the moment - literally last month - we are trying to retain graduate trainee posts and permanent positions in the south west and recruit four psychology assistants from the national recruitment panel established in December 2025, who will be allocated to support waitlist reduction in the longest waiting areas. We have 15 trainees exiting the doctoral training programme, which will be back-filled to ensure there is a pipeline of new psychologists to engage in that work. I completely acknowledge the challenge, measure of improvement and focus on recruitment. The Deputy and I are going to want to see that delivered for young people who need psychological support in that area.
3:45 am
Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South-Central, Sinn Fein)
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It is vitally important that we make this early intervention. The nature of primary care is that people are not triaged. It is very much a question of how long people are on the waiting list. CAMHS can triage people according to severity. The nature of primary care is, of course, that one comes in and is waiting the time one is waiting. That is all. All that time somebody's condition can be escalating. That can cause behavioural issues in school, an increase in the severity of suicidality and issues in terms of anxiety escalating. All of these problems escalate if we cannot address that.
It sounds from what the Minister is saying that many of the vacant posts which existed a year ago still exist. That is a concern. I make the point, and I have made it before, that one of the concerns I have, in terms of getting people into psychology, is that to try to reach the point of being able to do clinical psychology, one has to get experience. That is a barrier to people from low-income backgrounds. One has to be able to gain that experience and not everyone is able to get a paid position that provides clinical experience. I am concerned about people who are not seen and who have been on the waiting list for a year or whatever. When they turn 18 years of age, they are the back of the queue for adult primary care psychology.
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I cannot answer that for the Deputy this morning but it is an important question. We might put this series of questions to Andy Phillips in respect of that region. I am sorry I cannot answer that question for the Deputy.