Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail)
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41. To ask the Minister for Health his plans to provide a treatment purchase fund for mental health services; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28299/18]

Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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The development of all aspects of mental health services remains a priority for the Government. Services have benefitted from the significant additional investment for mental health over recent years which has resulted in an overall provision of some €910 million for this care programme in the current year. This is an increase of over €200m, or around 28%, in six years. I have already secured agreement from the Minister for Public Expenditure that the budget will increase by a further €55 Million in 2019.

While the level of vacancies and difficulty in recruiting skilled staff continues to pose a significant challenge to service provision, particularly in CAMHS, the provision of 136 new Primary Care Psychologists (including 22 basic grade psychology posts and 114 Assistant Psychologists) aims to reduce pressure on specialist CAMHS. These are currently being put in place by the HSE. In addition, we have funded the increase of Psychiatric Nurse Undergraduates places by 130 per year by 2021/22.

Work is also continuing on improvements to Out-of-Hours liaison, seven-day response services, and the progression of several National Clinical Specialist Mental Health Programmes.

I am open to considering all avenues that will assist with the timely treatment of mental health service users, and services such as CIPC are good examples of this. There are no specific mental health services that I am considering for inclusion under the National Treatment Purchase Fund at this current time.