Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail)
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447. To ask the Minister for Health the total annual spend currently on mental health; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29676/16]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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The amount allocated to mental health services under the HSE’s National Service Plan will increase by €41 million, or just over 5%, to €826 million for 2016. This represents a net increase of €115 million to the mental health Budget since 2012.

This increase has helped to fund additional posts to strengthen Community Mental Health Teams for both adults and children. It has also been used to enhance specialist community mental health and forensic services, improve the access to counselling and psychotherapy and for suicide prevention initiatives. In the region of 1,550 new posts have been approved since 2012. These posts have helped to facilitate the policy of moving away from traditional institutional based care to a patient-centred, flexible and community based mental health service where hospital admissions are greatly reduced, while still providing in-patient care when appropriate.