Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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Question 122: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children if there are treatment services provided by the State for people with eating disorders who live outside the Dublin area; if not, if assistance is made available for them to access treatment services, that is, clinics and treatment programmes; if there is a waiting list for such services and the breakdown of the waiting list; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [21539/06]

Tim O'Malley (Limerick East, Progressive Democrats)
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As part of a comprehensive community-oriented psychiatric services, persons presenting with eating disorders are generally treated in their area. Where in-patient treatment is deemed necessary, it is provided in child and adolescent psychiatric in-patient units or the local acute psychiatric unit or hospital. Outpatient psychiatric services are provided from a network of hospitals, health centres, day hospitals and day centres.

The future direction and delivery of all aspects of our mental health services, including services for persons with eating disorders, were considered in the context of the work of the Expert Group on Mental Health Policy. The Group's report entitled "A Vision for Change" was published on Tuesday 24th January, 2006. The report sets out how positive mental health can be promoted generally in our society, and how specialist mental health services can be delivered efficiently to persons with eating disorders who need them.

"A Vision for Change" acknowledges gaps in the current provision of mental health services for persons with eating disorders and makes several recommendations for the further improvement of these services. Recommendations include support for health promotion initiatives that encourage greater community and family awareness of eating disorders, the further development of primary and community care services and the provision of a full multi-disciplinary team in a National Centre for Eating Disorders. It is recommended that this National Centre be located in one of the national children's hospitals for complex cases that cannot be managed by local child and adolescent community mental health teams. The Government has accepted the Expert Group's report as the basis for the future development of the mental health services. In this connection an additional €25 million was made available this year to the HSE for the further development of our mental health services.

The Health Service Executive, which has primary responsibility for implementing the recommendations of "A Vision for Change" is in the process of establishing an implementation group to ensure that the recommendations are realised in a timely and coordinated manner. Also, I have recently appointed an independent monitoring group, as recommended in the Report, to oversee the implementation of "A Vision for Change". This group recently held its inaugural meeting.

Certain aspects of the Deputy's question refers to the management and delivery of health and personal social services, which are the responsibility of the Health Service Executive under the Health Act 2004. Accordingly, my Department has requested the Parliamentary Affairs Division of the Executive to arrange to have this matter investigated and to have a reply issued directly to the Deputy.