Don Lydon (Fianna Fail)

I, too, support the call for the debate on the health service. As Senator Quinn mentioned, we should narrow it to perhaps child or adolescent psychiatry. Psychiatry has always been seen as the Cinderella of the health service and adolescent psychiatry as the Cinderella of the psychiatric service. As long as 30 years ago, I called for investment in this area and successive Governments, including those comprising my party, have not invested in it. There has been a dearth of investment in adolescent psychiatry and the problems in it can be solved. One of the reasons it has been avoided is that it is so expensive and intensive. There are psychologists, educational psychologists, psychiatrists and other therapists with the expertise but there are not enough of them and we need more. I am not worried about what happened in the past and I look to what we can do in the future. We can provide long overdue help for these young people. I am sure the Government will examine this area.