Jillian van Turnhout (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I put forward amendment No. 4 in error. What I had intended to propose, and which I may do on Report Stage, relates to subsection 8(4)(a). This subsection states that among the services not included within the provisions of the Bill are "psychological services associated with the provision of specialist mental health services to children". I spoke on Second Stage of my regret that the child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, are not being transferred during phase one. I understand why that is the case, but I have a major difficulty with the Bill explicitly ruling out psychological services associated with the provision of specialist mental health services to children. Why is this explicit exclusion contained in the Bill? Social workers - who, like CAMHS, come under the remit of the HSE - tell me that they are already experiencing huge difficulty in accessing these services. That difficulty will only be exacerbated when the social worker function and CAMHS are operating under the remit of different agencies.