Sarah O'Reilly (Aontú)

The Minister of State is very welcome. A recent UNICEF report paints a poor picture of youth well-being in Ireland. It found that one in three 15-year-olds report low life satisfaction. Our teenagers may be successful in school, but they are struggling in life and that is the sad reality. We pride ourselves on academic results, but we need to do more for their emotional and mental well-being, and we need to do it as early as possible.

There has been much focus on mental health awareness and encouraging young people to be vulnerable. However, when they reach out, help may be available but delayed. The Covid pandemic left scars we are still uncovering. Lockdowns, school closures and isolation took their toll and the effects still linger. I call on the Government to seriously examine the Icelandic model, a proven approach that has transformed youth well-being in Iceland. One of the main ideas was the introduction of a wellness card which has a set amount of funding for each child to access extracurricular activities. In Iceland, youth participation doubled after its introduction. The result has been a reduction in substance abuse, smoking, drinking and drug taking. Countries like Finland, which have an incredibly integrated mental health system, focus on the importance of early intervention and preventative healthcare. We need to set young people up for success at an early stage in life.

We must also stop turning a blind eye to the crisis in our mental health services. Children are waiting years for CAMHS appointments. Families are forced to bring children to overcrowded accident and emergency departments to access basic help. While waiting lists grow, CAMHS staffing is shrinking, down from 831 at the end of 2023 to 811 at the end of 2024. We are losing an average of 12 educational psychologists annually. Our graduate programmes only produce 14 per year. How is the Government planning to increase the availability of mental health services when the staff are simply not there? We discussed increasing budgets. We can have all the money in the world, but if we do not have the staff, services will not be available. The maths does not really add up.

We estimate that establishing just 12 additional CAMHS teams would cost around €10 million, a modest investment for a potentially life-saving impact. If we want to increase the number of child psychologists in the country, we need to have a more streamlined approach to qualifying. Currently, many undergraduates abandon their desire to pursue graduate programmes as they are applying year on year with no success. The Government can fix the mental health crisis, but without the staff to provide services, children will be left waiting.

Loneliness is a huge issue for young men and farmers, in particular. I mention SOSAD in Cavan. Any money it receives goes directly to front-line services. It is not caught up in bureaucracy. There was to be a service level agreement with the HSE but that is still not in place. I ask for an update on that from the Minister of State.