Maureen O'Sullivan (Dublin Central, Independent)
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221. To ask the Minister for Health if he will provide a breakdown of the way, and where, the €35 million funding allocated for the development of community mental health services in 2015 will be spent; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9800/15]

Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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The National Service Plan 2015 provides for funding of €792 million for HSE Mental Health Services. This includes additional funding of €35m million held by the Department of Health pending agreement with the HSE on how this will be spent.

Discussions are currently taking place between my Department and the HSE on the final allocation of these funds. In line with the priority areas for development of mental health services, set out in A Vision for Change, I announced in Budget 2015 that the additional funding would be directed to the continued prioritised development and reconfiguration of both the General Adult and the Child & Adolescent Community Mental Health teams, and also to more specialist areas which have not heretofore received the same degree of attention. These areas include Psychiatry of Late Life, and urgent specialist needs such as psychiatric intensive care, forensic mental health, mental health intellectual disability care and psychiatric liaison services.

I hope to finalise the allocation of the additional funds with the HSE in the very near future.

The Department of Health will continue to liaise closely with the HSE in relation to the normal monitoring processes for delivering mental health priorities agreed in the 2015 National Service Plan, including for services to be funded from the additional allocation.

The additional funding in 2015 is part of the substantial allocation of new funds for mental health under this Government, amounting to a total of €125 million, including the 2015 allocation.