Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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To ask the Minister for Health when the 477 posts allocated for mental health services in the Health Service Executive's 2013 National Service Plan will be advertised; the timeframe for the recruitment of same; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [7448/13]

Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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Budget 2013 provided an additional €35 million for the continued development of our mental health services. The HSE National Service Plan 2013 commits to a number of objectives including the further development of forensics and community mental health teams for adults, children, older persons and mental health intellectual disability and to the recruitment of 477 additional staff to implement these measures.

In order to ensure that the additional resources will be used to best effect, discussions are ongoing within the HSE, and in consultation with the Department of Health, to finalise the allocation of these resources. It has been agreed that the allocation of staff will be subject to detailed business cases from the HSE Regions for each objective and that the following conditions should be met:

- All posts will be allocated to the community mental health teams for each objective and for no other purpose.

- All teams must discharge the Team Coordinator role to ensure effective working as a multidisciplinary team.

- All teams must implement the Clinical Programmes, as agreed.

- All Teams must complete and return required Key Performance Indicators, both existing and new.

- All postholders will work as part of a mental health services community mental health multidisciplinary team.

Each HSE Region is being asked to submit a business case against each of the identified objectives detailing how the funding is to be spent and the type and number of WTE to be recruited. It is expected that this process will be concluded by end March 2013. Until that process is completed, I am not in a position to indicate when these posts will be advertised or the timeframe for recruitment.