Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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477. To ask the Minister for Health the number of child mental health inpatient beds recommended by his Department; and the way this compares with actual provision. [6109/15]

Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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A Vision for Changerecommends the provision of 80 child and adolescent psychiatric in-patient beds. Currently, there are54 operational Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service ( CAMHS ) beds in the HSE, i.e. beds available to take a child / adolescent as an in-patient if the need arises. These beds are located as follows - 22 in Dublin, 20 in Galway and 12 in Cork. This is an improvement on the position in November last, when 48 beds were operational.

A new purpose built 22 bed CAMHS in-patient unit located on the grounds of Cherry Orchard Hospital is due to be completed in mid-2015. The existing 14 beds in the current temporary facility, will transfer across, thereby giving a net increase of 8 beds in the facility, thus increasing the number of operational beds nationally to 62. In addition, the HSE intend to open an additional 8 beds, currently closed, in the Eist Linn Unit in Cork, when staffing recruitment issues are resolved, thereby targetting an overall operational capacity of 70 beds in 2015. The question of providing additional bed provision, in line with A Vision for Change and overall revenue availability over the longer term, will be kept under review by the Department of Health and the HSE.