Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator Cassells so much for raising this issue in the Seanad. It is a hugely importantly issue. I have consistently sought the reinstatement of a national director for mental health post in the HSE since coming into my post a year and a half ago. The previous mental health strategy, A Vision for Change, recommended that a national mental health director be established under the leadership of a national director to prioritise the mental health agenda and to drive it centrally within the HSE. The important line was to drive it centrally.

This was achieved with the appointment of the first HSE national director in 2013. The programme for Government commits to examining the reinstatement of the national directorate for mental health. I am confident that I have the full support of colleagues in this matter. Given the importance of mental health, we now have an Oireachtas sub-committee on mental health. The sub-committee is chaired by Senator Black who is here in the Seanad. Senator Black could stand here and talk about what I am talking about today, which is the importance of being able to drive the vision in relation to mental health. As part of the HSE structural changes, the post of national director for mental health was disbanded and a new national director of community health service operations subsumed the operational role of the existing national directors for primary care, social care, health and wellbeing, and mental health. The previous national director post for mental health was split into two separate dedicated leads at assistant national director level, one within community operations and one within community strategy. An additional three new senior roles were introduced. These were a chief operations officer, a chief strategy and planning officer, and a chief clinical officer.

Standing here today, I am not trying to take anything from these fantastic people who are doing phenomenal work every day of the week and who are driving on the challenges we have in mental health. However, let us stop and think of the two years we have come through with Covid-19, as well the fact that we do not know what we will see in the next year or two regarding people with long Covid and, especially, older people who are trying to reconnect with society, young people who have been really challenged regarding their junior certificate and leaving certificate examinations, hybrid education, moving onto college, as well as the ordinary cut and thrust of every day life. It has been challenging for people. Now, more than ever, I strongly believe that we need a national director for mental health within the HSE to drive our new mental health policy, Sharing the Vision. It is an excellent policy. However, policies are fine, but implementation is key.

It would be remiss of me not to speak about the situation that has occurred in Kerry in the last two weeks. To update the House, I am taking a three-pronged approach to how we rebuild confidence in CAMHS throughout the country. First, there will be an independent audit on compliance, structure and process. We will look at team composition, we will look at the skill mix, we will look at the clinical operation in governance and we will look at access to services, which are important.

The second part of the three-pronged approach is that we will do a full research piece. We will speak to service users and to young people about their experience nationally. This will be done from an academic focus. However, it is important to speak to young people from all over Ireland about how they got on when they were referred to CAMHS.

The third part, and an important part, is an audit of the prescribing practice. This will be a full audit of the 73 CAMHS teams through the country regarding their prescribing practice. The whole purpose is to design the audit, to collect, to collate and to report.

A non-adversarial approach will be adopted in compensation. Details will be worked out in consultation with my Department and the Office of the Attorney General.