Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left)
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18. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs his views on bringing child and adolescent mental health services within the new Child and Family Agency in order to ensure a better and more co-ordinated response to children with mental health difficulties. [43928/14]

James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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The establishment of the Child and Family Agency on 1 January 2014 constituted one of the most extensive public service organisational reforms ever implemented. It brought together child welfare and protection responsibilities formerly under the Health Service Executive, the functions of the Family Support Agency, and the functions of the National Educational Welfare Board.

The Agency has a staff of 4,000 and its budget is just over €600 million in the current year. Accordingly, in terms of the range of services provided directly by the Agency, a considerable amount of activity has been in consolidating, organisational changes to support the better delivery of service with a view to better outcomes for children.

The Agency has statutory responsibility for the provision of psychology services to children and families.

Psychology and Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) for children are currently being provided by the HSE.

The Agency and the HSE have in place both a Memorandum of Understanding and a Joint Protocol for inter-agency collaboration which underpins the provision of these services for children.

The purpose of the Memorandum of Understanding is to set out the partnership agreement between the HSE and the Agency to continue pre-establishment levels of service across both organisations in accordance with the Health Service National Service Plan 2014, the Child and Family Agency Service Plan 2014 and Operational Plans 2014.

The objective of the Joint Protocol is to specify a pathway and associated responsibilities for children and families whose needs cross between Health Service Divisions and the Agency.

Both the Memorandum of Understanding and the Joint Protocol are subject to regular monitoring and review to ensure that they are working effectively in the best interests of children and families. Additionally, the Agency and the HSE are working to finalise a service level agreement to underpin the provision of psychological services by the HSE. The service level agreement with the HSE will determine the quantum of service needed to meet the Agency's requirements and will be an interim arrangement pending the Agency providing the service directly.

The Task Force on the Child and Family Support Agency made recommendations regarding direct provision by the new agency of a range of other services relevant to children and families, which included child and adolescent mental health services.

The practical implications of the scale of on-going organisational change are such as to require that consideration of the Task Force's wider recommendations and their possible implementation would take place according to a less immediate timescale. This will allow for more careful review and considerations in conjunction with relevant Departments, principally the Department of Health.