Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator for raising this important issue. I am taking it on behalf of my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Mary Butler. The Government remains committed to the development of all aspects of mental health services nationally, including those for children and young people. This is reflected by the record allocation of over €1.2 billion for mental health in 2023, which includes a wide spectrum of services for young people ranging from prevention and early intervention to clinical programmes or acute inpatient care. The Sharing the Vision policy has various recommendations relating to children and adolescents, including promoting a more holistic and whole-of-government approach.

In terms of child and adolescent service development and improvement, a significant recent announcement under the HSE service plan 2023 is the creation of a new post of youth mental health lead at assistant national director level, and a new clinical lead for youth mental health. These posts will allow the HSE to focus on the provision of more integrated services for young people, as envisaged under Sharing the Vision and Sláintecare.

With regard to the proposal to establish a cross-governmental youth mental health pathfinder unit, ministerial approval was received during the previous Government to convene an interdepartmental group with participation from the Department of Health, the Department of Education and the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. In addition, its establishment is contained within the current programme for Government. It has always been envisioned that such a collaborative approach would provide a beneficial way to address service improvement, and would help to ensure that barriers to accessing mental health services by young people are broken down, with the benefit of services being integrated, signposted and accessible. This integration of accessible, signposted services remains to the forefront of all youth mental health service improvements.

However, as the Senator will be aware, the demands on these Departments during the pandemic have presented challenges to progressing the pathfinder unit.The realignment of departmental functions in the education sector, specifically the establishment of the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, has also necessitated some further consideration of the initial proposal and make-up of the pathfinder unit. This is not to say that work in this area has not continued or that important interdepartmental collaboration has not continued. As my colleague, the Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Butler, will confirm, improving mental health services for young people is a key focus for her and her Department. Opportunities for service improvement and policy implementation are constantly being actively engaged in by both the HSE and officials in the Department of Health.

To this end, I can confirm to the Senator that the Department of Children, Equality, Disability and Integration and Youth is currently developing the next national policy framework for children and young people as a successor strategy to Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures. As part of this work, that Department is liaising with the Department of Health to launch a youth mental health spotlight programme aligning Departments with responsibility for health, well-being and education and tasked with making the navigation of treatment and support mechanisms easier for parents and young people alike using resources in this area to best effect. Both I and the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, look forward to how the work of the pathfinder project to date can be used to inform the youth mental health spotlight programme. I assure the Senator that I will continue to keep this matter under review in the context of progress to date or planned-for mental health legislation, policies and services relating to young people.