Emer Currie (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim buíochas leis an gCathaoirleach Gníomhach. I am very grateful to the Minister of State for attending today.

To put this very simply, we need more psychologists in Ireland. Why, if we are in chronic need of more psychologists, do we put so many barriers in the way of getting them? It is not because we do not have the talent, commitment and ambition. I am aware the Minister of State is familiar with and cares about this information. Just to recap, staff in the child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, are overwhelmed, and one told me that is the worst they have ever experienced. The delivering specialist mental health services 2019 report states that the percentage of new development posts being filled went from 69% in 2017 to 17% in 2018, and 32% in 2019. We know of the waiting lists across community mental health teams, early intervention and school-age teams. I understand that is being changed, and is progressing to disability teams at the moment.Despite these backlogs and the acute personal pain and social problems that persist, there are systemic barriers to getting qualified psychologists onto the front line to deal with them and to build what we require, which is a diverse workforce of psychologists. We are overseeing a deeply inequitable and unhealthy system in which only a very small number of psychologists eventually qualify, and many who do are in dire financial straits for pursuing their calling.

It is an incredibly competitive system and not many people make it onto the doctorates, and I say that as a female politician. Their commitment and resilience are something else. They undergo and pay for their undergraduate course, which is four years, and then a masters, which is two years, followed by work experience which could be another two years. They try to obtain an assistant psychologist post which, as we have seen recently, can be unfunded or voluntary. That work experience is required to secure a doctorate. Incidentally, assistant psychologists are not replacements for fully qualified psychologists. Then, if they are lucky, they might secure one of the coveted places on the island for their doctorate, where they could pay €15,000 per year to do it over three years and during which they work a minimum of 300 hours, and it could be 450 hours, unpaid throughout the duration of their studies. That is 11 years, mainly self-funded, even though the health service is in critical need of their care, commitment and expertise. However, if one gets a place on a clinical trainee doctorate, one gets 60% of one's fees paid and receives a student salary starting at €33,000 for one's work experience. However, if one takes the route of counselling in education one gets nothing when doing the doctorate, even though all three strands - clinical, counselling and educational - are eligible for the same posts when people are qualified.

I believe in equality of opportunity, as does the Minister of State. We need a fully functional health service that places the citizen at the centre of care. Where we see solutions before us in terms of educational and professional attainment, addressing our mental health crisis and helping people who need it most, we have an obligation to execute those solutions. A very small step that would cost the Exchequer only €1.5 million per year is to make access to funding for doctorates equitable. That is what I hope the Minister for State will commit to today. There are other things we can do to break down the barriers, but this is one small step. To break the backlogs we must break down the barriers.