Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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27. To ask the Minister for Health his plans to address the shortfall in services available to children with mental health difficulties, as identified in the recent publication by the Children's Rights Alliance, Report Card 2015; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14628/15]

Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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I have recently published the Expert Group report on the review of the Mental Health Act 2001. The report makes a number of significant recommendations in relation to children with one of the most important being the need to ensure that provisions relating to children should be included in a stand alone part of the Act and any provisions of the Child Care Act 1991 which apply should be expressly included rather than cross referenced.

The Group also recommended a number of child appropriate guiding principles which include issues such as the autonomy and self determination of the child should be respected insofar as practicable, the need to ensure consultation with the child at each and every stage of diagnosis and treatment, due weight being given to his/her views consistent with his/her age, evolving capacity and maturity with due regard to his/her will and preferences and ensuring that where there is an intervention on behalf of a child, his/her best interests must be taken into account.

In addition, Children aged 16 or 17 will be presumed to have capacity to consent/refuse admission and treatment in the future.

I am satisfied that the recommendations of the Expert Group will address the concerns of the publication to which the Deputy makes reference. I have instructed my officials to draw up a general scheme of a bill to reflect all of the recommendations of the Expert Group including those relating to children in revised legislation.

A full copy of the Expert Group Report is available on the Department’s website.

The HSE National Service Plan 2015 aims to improve placement of children in age appropriate mental health settings. The 95% target indicated in the Plan allows for some flexibility surrounding emergency placements in Adult Units. The corresponding target set in the 2014 Service Plan was 75% or above.

It is generally accepted that it will be most challenging for the HSE to meet the ambitious target for 2015, relative to the 2014 outturn position of around 70% for age appropriate placements. However, progress in this area has been significant over recent years, as evidenced by the fact that the number of such admissions to adult units in 2008 was 247, and that the trend has been declining annually since then to the most recent draft figure of 89 admissions for 2014. Clearly, there remains room for improvement and this issue has therefore been flagged as a Key Priority in this year's Service Plan.

At present, there are 58in-patient beds for children and adolescentsin the HSE. Overall, the HSE are targeting an operational capacity of 74 public Child and Adolescent beds nationally by the end of 2015. It should be noted that difficulties with re-opening some existing beds at local level, already resourced in the system, primarily relates to securing or retaining staff rather than the non-availability of funding.