Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Question 90: To ask the Minister for Health and Children the amount of the €100 million which was set aside in budget 2009 in respect of services for children with disabilities and mental health problems which has been spent; the details of what this has been spent on; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [25462/09]

John Moloney (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy should note that additional funding of €10 million was provided in Budget 2009 for the HSE for disability and mental health to enable these services to be enhanced and strengthened.

This funding will allow for the provision of a total of 125 additional therapy posts in the HSE targeted at children of school-going age. 90 of these will be in disability services, including speech and language therapists, occupational therapists and physiotherapists.

This additional funding will also allow for the recruitment of 35 therapy posts for the child and adolescent mental health service. This will enable the HSE to increase the number of Community Child and Adolescent Mental Health Teams to 69 by the end of 2009. Once-off funding of €1m was provided for suicide prevention initiatives including the development of an awareness campaign aimed at young people. Furthermore, additional once-off funding of €750,000 was allocated for mental health projects supporting service users and carers.

The Deputy should note that overall funding of approximately €1.56 billion is provided in the Estimates 2009 for disability services and €1 billion is provided for mental health services.

In accordance with the procedures to control public finances and the Health Act 2004 which established the HSE, the HSE must receive the sanction of the Minister for Finance before it may enter into new commitments in respect of the development of services. This is provided each year after the publication of the Revised Book of Estimates and is given in accordance with strict provisions regarding the use of funds, in particular funds allocated to further enhance and develop services.

As the Deputy is aware the finalisation of the revised estimates and their publication was delayed due to the necessity for the Government to deal with the critical situation facing the public finances. The letter of sanction, which includes sanction of development funding issued to the HSE on 15 June. In view of the urgency of the matter the Minister for Finance sanctioned the funding for the suicide prevention programme on the 18 May.

The additional development funding provided in Budget 2009 has been allocated to a new subhead for service developments. These funds together with the other expenditure of the HSE are the subject of regular and detailed analysis by my Department.