Geraldine Feeney (Fianna Fail)

I thank Senator Kitt for sharing his time with me and I welcome the Minister of State back to the House. Senator Ryan is correct in saying that the Minister of State is a listening Minister. He is also a caring Minister whose brief suits him very well. I am delighted to have the opportunity to contribute to this debate.

I will focus on the annual report for 2005 of the Mental Health Commission. I was interested to discover that a line in it which stated that there are no autistic spectrum disorder services in Sligo because there is no consultant psychiatrist there. I was rather surprised to read this because Sligo possessed a wonderful child psychiatrist, Dr. David Tindall. He has since moved on but there is an acting post which has been filled. It is not a permanent one and I ask the Minister of State to ensure, if possible, that matters are moved along. Something like autism can be possibly picked up in the educational system rather than being addressed in the health system. Perhaps it would be better dealt with there.

I have always placed on record my interest in adolescent psychiatry. I remember telling a very sad story a few months ago about a 14 year old who was an inpatient in an adult unit. The consequences for him were very drastic. I am aware that a working group is seeking an interim solution to the problem of how to deal with those aged 16 to 18. At the moment, most of them probably end up in adult units. The Minister of State is a family man in addition to being the Minister of State with responsibility for mental health. Adult units are not suitable for these patients. There should be more dedicated places for adolescents.

It is great to see all the comment surrounding multidisciplinary teams. Everyone would support this. However, it is sometimes very difficult to put together this entire team. Sometimes a social worker, occupational therapist or psychologist will not be available and the team is not composed. More resources should be put into developing multidisciplinary teams.

In a debate such as this, I always look to my home base. I live in an old health board house in Sligo which was the home of a former HMS. My next door neighbour is St. Columba's Psychiatric Hospital, which is the mental hospital in Sligo. The service delivered by the hospital is second to none. It will state that it does not have sufficient resources and I will address this shortly. I spoke to professionals at the hospital this morning who are delivering this service and they informed me that if they were sick in the morning, they would not want to leave Sligo. They would wish to stay at home and be treated for their mental illness.

We have an excellent community-based service with inpatient facilities. It provides services such as an outpatients department, day care, a day hospital and domiciliary care, which takes place in patients' homes. It also has a dedicated psychiatry old age team, with which I was very impressed. I did not come across it before. This morning, I spoke to one of them about the fact that the Sligo and Leitrim area is the only part of the country where a cognitive behaviour therapist is assigned to every GP unit. That means when someone who does not need to be hospitalised goes to the doctor he or she can be assigned to the cognitive behaviour therapist and be treated for a short-term problem without drugs.

I also have praise for a cross-Border project on caring for carers, which may have concluded but is being continued in Sligo and Leitrim. It upskills carers who work with patients in their homes. The people availing of the service are happy with it.

At present, training for undergraduate psychiatric nursing is based in Letterkenny. St. Angela's is a very good educational facility in Sligo. Moves are afoot to bring cognitive behaviour therapy into the undergraduate programme. The good result yielded from the scheme running in Sligo make a case for including it.

I take my hat off to the mental health unit in Sligo. It sold the building it was based in 20 years ago and we now have a beautiful hotel in the old mental hospital. The mental health unit now only has an admission unit and a ten-bedded ward. If it had stayed where it was it may have received more because it would have been awarded a team enhancement grant at least, which may have provided three or four more social workers, a psychotherapist or a psychologist. Will the Minister of State consider providing for multi-disciplinary members of those teams rather than medical personnel?