Maureen O'Sullivan (Dublin Central, Independent)
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85. To ask the Minister for Health the amount of the €20 million allocated for community mental health services in budget 2014 spent in 2014; if he will provide a breakdown on the way the money was spent; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2365/15]

Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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In relation to the €20 million provided in Budget 2014, the HSE National Service Plan provided for the phasing-in of the expenditure, in order for the HSE to live within its overall available resource across its service areas. It was planned that recruitment of 2014 posts would be started in order to provide for posts to come on stream during Quarter 4 and to this end, an amount of €5 million was expected to be spent in 2014 from the 2014 allocation.

The HSE have informed me that a detailed analysis took place during 2014 of all 9,000 staff in Mental Health Services to inform the decision making process on the prioritised allocation of approximately 250 new posts. Although full recruitment did not take place during Quarter 4 2014, the posts appointed required €0.250m with the remainder of the €5 million largely expended on the opening of unfunded but approved capacity in the National Forensic Service in order to provide sufficient extra capacity to meet the requirements of the Criminal Law Insanity Act. This €20 million is available to spend in full on mental health services in 2015, along with the new additional funding of €35m provided in Budget 2015.