Mental Health Services Dail Éireann — 2026-01-14 ============================================================ Mary Butler (FF), Waterford I thank the Deputy very much for his question. I am quite disappointed at how the Deputy has presented the situation in Wexford. I think of all of those who are working in mental health services in Wexford today. They would be disappointed by the Deputy's statement that Wexford has been completely left behind in relation to mental health services. I will approach this issue in three different ways. First, as the Deputy knows, we have six new regional health areas. Community healthcare organisations, CHO, 5 and 6 have been amalgamated and broken down into three substructures. Waterford and Wexford are amalgamated under one integrated healthcare area, IHA, manager, Dr. Sinéad Reynolds, whose background is in mental health. She is a strong advocate for mental health. I will meet Dr. Reynolds in the next two weeks to discuss mental health services across Waterford and Wexford. I take umbrage with how the Deputy portrayed the department of psychiatry led by the clinical director, Dr. Vwoke Akpubi, in University Hospital Waterford. On two occasions, the Deputy said it was an antiquated service. That is not true. Maybe the Deputy meant the building, but the service is not antiquated. St. Senan's closed in 2013 before the Deputy and I became involved politics at national level. When St. Senan's was closed a decision was taken that all referrals would be made to University Hospital Waterford. There are 42 beds in the department of psychiatry at University Hospital Waterford. We also have a service-level agreement with St. Patrick's in Dublin. I know this inside out because I have lived it for the last five years as Minister of State with responsibility for mental health. We have a service-level agreement with St. Patrick's, a private hospital in Dublin, when we have issues with capacity. The Deputy has spoken about the number of presentations of children to emergency departments in Wexford. As he will know, when Wexford General Hospital had a fire a year and a half ago, University Hospital Waterford partnered very closely with it to take any of the overflow that could not be dealt with at that time. In response to the Deputy's comment that the unit is antiquated and not suitable for children, only two children were admitted to an adult department of psychiatry last year across the whole country, down from 100 when I took over in 2020. There were two cases last year, taken in real time when a clinician - a consultant psychiatrist - had to make a life or death decision on whether to admit that child or young person. In both cases, the patients were 17-plus and they were admitted with the approval of their parents. I cannot let that hang in the air. Wexford is being very well served by community mental health teams. There are six adult community mental health teams, one in Maryville, New Ross, two in Carn House in Enniscorthy, one in Tara House, Gorey and two in Summerhill in Wexford town. There are also two CAMHS teams and there are plans to put a third team in place. That said, I do accept what the Deputy has said in relation to the fact that there are no adult psychiatric beds. That is the nub of the issue in Wexford in general. Indeed, this has been raised with me by the Minister for housing, Deputy Browne, on several occasions and by other public representatives in Wexford. I want to give a shout out to Mental Health Ireland which is very strong in Wexford. Over the last five years I have launched many of its initiatives in relation to mental health, well-being, and emotional distress in the Wexford area and I want to applaud it for all the work it does on the ground. To go back to what the Deputy has said in relation to acute beds, I am aware that there are none in Wexford. I am also aware that there are none in Tipperary. We have done a capacity review of mental health beds and we will be having a look at this in the new year. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-14/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:30+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-01-14