Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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611. To ask the Minister for Health the status of the implementation of the youth mental health pathfinder initiative; the roadmap and timeline to full implementation; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18414/19]

Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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The proposal to establish a cross-governmental youth mental health Pathfinder team with participation from the Department of Health, the Department of Education & Skills and the Department of Children & Youth Affairs has Civil Service Management Board and Ministerial approval.

The proposal is to formalise a new model for collaborative working within Government on a statutory footing by utilising section 12 of the Public Service Management Act 1997. This section of the 1997 Act has never been used before. Various administrative, budgetary, governance and legal arrangements need to be put in place to ensure a robust and workable model for Pathfinder.

The Department of Health has engaged extensively with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, and as a result the participating Departments are considering a number of implementation options that address the above issues.

I am due to meet with Minister Donohoe and his officials on the 29th of this month, I hope to make substantial progress on the matter in the coming months.

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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612. To ask the Minister for Health his plans to address the delays in access and lack of resources in mental health services for children and young persons; his plans to implement in full the recommendations of the report of the task force on youth mental health; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18416/19]

Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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The National Youth Mental Health Task Force was established in response to an undertaking in the Programme for Partnership Government 2016. It was asked to produce a series of action-focused recommendations to increase youth-specific mental health initiatives nationally. The Taskforce report was published in December 2017 and actions are to be delivered over a three-year time frame.

Since publication of the Taskforce report, a number of the recommendations have been incorporated into the service plans of lead agencies who are delivering on the actions assigned to them. The implementation of these recommendations has been on-going. Since the report was launched a number of priorities have been delivered including; the provision of additional on-line information and sign-posting tools and supports; development of a resilience-based national mental health promotion campaign; provision of multi-disciplinary mental health training; the introduction of perinatal mental health training to staff; the development of several on-line supports such as crisis text line and tele-counselling; and the introduction of a revised junior cycle curriculum in schools to include more mental health awareness.

There is a number of outstanding recommendations yet to be implemented and it is intended that these will be implemented within the three-year time frame.