Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

A significant conversation needs to be had because we have 75 CAMHS teams but not all of them are fully staffed. Some of them have more capacity than others. I have spoken to many parents and they said to me that they do not mind driving for an extra 20 or 30 minutes if they know the child will receive the supports. There are a lot of conversations to be had. I had a series of round-table meetings just before the summer recess and brought all the stakeholders in to decide what we could do.

As for two of the things I will announce later today - I will give a preview of them - one is that I secured the money yesterday in the budget for a new youth mental health app. Nearly every young person has access to a phone and there will be a youth mental health app that will signpost the supports they need. Senator Malcolm Byrne spoke about the great work being done in the community in Wexford.

The second piece I will announce later today relates to a pilot of a no wrong door approach. We will pilot this in CHO 9 because it is in a position to put this in place. Basically, when a child attends a GP and a referral is made, there will be a no wrong door approach. Every child who is referred will be clinically assessed and it will be determined where that child should go. In some cases it may be Foróige, in some cases it may be a family resource centre, it might be Jigsaw, it might be Talk To Tom, it might be whatever services are available in the area. It might be CAMHS. It will be whatever is appropriate for the child. What we want to do going forward is to pilot this in order that parents know that when they bring their child to the GP, there will be a door and the door will open. I am really excited about launching that this afternoon. I secured the funding in the budget to do that. I thank the Senator and will certainly keep an eye on this for him.