I know that.

On the Deputy's first question, the four acute units are included in the audit. I believed that this was very important. The Deputy asked about Linn Dara. The Deputy will be aware that everything that we can do is being done. There was a report in the newspapers yesterday when I said there was capacity of 16 beds available in Cork. This is actually correct. There are 13 inpatients there at the moment. To the end of March this year, thankfully, no child had been placed in a psychiatric ward so far this year. If ther…

I will take this question on behalf of the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, who sends her apologies to the Deputy. The HSE acknowledges that the Cavan and Monaghan children’s disability network teams are currently operating their services with reduced staff numbers due to recruitment issues being experienced locally and nationally. The HSE advises that it is currently in the process of recruiting for vacant posts in the areas of speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, psychology and soc…

I am aware that the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, has been engaged with the Deputy and in various areas in the State. The Minister of State has taken to the road and is holding public meetings in different CHO areas to see what actions can be taken. As the Deputy recognises, it is not for the want of the Minister of State trying. The occupational therapy and physiotherapy wait list initiative is managed by primary care services in Cavan and Monaghan. It offers assessment and brief intervention to children who…

The Deputy has raised some good points. I will talk to the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, about encouraging people from outside the EU to come and work in these areas. We are looking at that with regard to home care as well. Everybody knows there is a shortage in the workforce. The Minister of State has been speaking to the Minister for Health about funding to buy private capacity. That capacity was bought in for assessments of need 12 months ago and it reduced that waiting list significantly. A lot of the chi…

I welcome the research findings of Maynooth University’s centre for mental health and community research into family focused interventions where there are parental mental health difficulties. The study is known as the PRIMERA programme, the findings of which I launched last week. The university's research programme findings recommend a family focused approach. This was funded by the HSE at a cost of almost €500,000. The centre did a huge amount of research over the last five years. It is estimated one in four peopl…

The Deputy and I are on the same page here. It is hugely important. The centre spent five whole years looking at the effect mental illness of a parent has on the family. Family involvement, as the Deputy said, is very important in the recovery process and it is aligned with Sharing the Vision which, as the Deputy knows, is a ten-year plan. To show how important family involvement is I recently set up a reference group to support the work of Sharing the Vision’s national implementation monitoring committee. The grou…

It is interesting the Deputy has raised this today. Deputy Lahart raised it with me last night as well. The association has obviously been meeting with quite a few Deputies around the House. There would have to be collaboration with the Department of Education. We have collaborated previously when I sent out the leaflet on supports available to young people. The situation has changed, as we all know. The day is gone that when children present to school they just come to learn to read, write and do maths. Children a…

I thank the Deputy for his question and his continued interest in this particular sector. We have had many conversations on it. He is right the demand for home support has never been higher and its importance as an alternative service to long stay care has grown considerably over the past number of years. It is also a much more cost-effective way for the State to support people compared with them being in acute hospitals or nursing homes. In budget 2021 I secured additional funding of €150 million to progress the d…

The Deputy is quite right in what he says. A national recruitment drive is really important. As he knows, we have nine CHOs and they vary. CHO 9, which covers north County Dublin, delivers all its supports through both voluntary and private. There is no HSE. It is something that evolved over many years. Its waiting list is the lowest in the country with 50 people waiting. Yesterday, I met with CHO 4, which is Cork-Kerry, and 75% of its home care is provided through the HSE and 25% is provided through the voluntary …

We have had many conversations about home care, and I know everybody feels the same. I am in a unique position as Minister of State in that I have a budget of €672 million to deliver home care. Every one of those packages, apart from what comes in rolling over ten or 14 days, is funded. The other ones will be funded very quickly. The issue is not funding. One issue we have, and I provided money in the Estimates last year and again this year for it, is that some of the CHOs, not all of them, are still working on a p…

I thank the Deputy for raising this question. I offer my apologies on behalf of the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, who is not able to be here. We hear stories such as Frankie's all the time, and the Minister is acutely aware of the current situation. The new standard operating procedure for assessments of need was implemented for all new applications for assessments of need from 15 January 2020. Since then, approximately 10,000 preliminary team assessments have been completed. In quarter 1 of this year, the da…

I wish to point out an important point. The assessments are being done. There have been 10,000 assessments done over the past two years. Obviously, the court ruling has challenged that. There were 1,719 assessments done in the first quarter of the year. My understanding is the assessments are being done and that children are being referred on to different multidisciplinary teams and the supports are not there. Since 2019, funding has been provided by the Government for approximately 475 new development posts, enhan…

It is acknowledged there are serious challenges in the filling of therapy posts due to the availability of new opportunities across the health and social care sector. As I have said, 475 posts have been developed since 2019. I reiterate that assessment of need reports will no longer be issued on the basis of a preliminary team assessment, and the HSE will engage directly with the families of those who received a PTA to establish if they wish to receive a further assessment under the terms of the Disability Act. As …

I am familiar with the Deputy's question as she raised it with me as a Topical Issue matter two weeks ago tomorrow. As I said to her then, the HSE manages operational issues. It is not unusual for staff in multidisciplinary teams to be moved into different areas, whether it is from Cork south Lee to Cork north Lee, or from south Wexford to north Wexford. I am not able to comment on the young girl in question but if the Deputy would send me on the details, I will look at them.

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue which he has raised several times before. Many young people are suffering with psychosis. We see it especially among those aged between 18 and 25. There are strong links between the consumption of cannabis and psychosis. We have several very good teams on the ground. We have fantastic pilot programmes under way in Cork and Sligo and I hope to extend them. A bed capacity review is under way and I am due to have the report by next week. It has been promised for a while. There…

We are all very upset and disappointed that it has come to the stage that 11 beds have had to be closed in Linn Dara. Linn Dara is a fantastic facility. It normally has 24 beds and it has an attached school with five teachers. I was delighted to visit it last year. There are 51 funded posts for nurses in Linn Dara and there are 24 staff currently in place. From a patient safety perspective, the facility has been working at between 60% and 70% capacity for the last few months. I am aware that there have been challen…

I am going to ask my colleague to answer that question as he deals with work permits.

I thank the four Deputies for raising this issue today. Deputy Collins raised it earlier as well. It was raised on Leaders' Questions because it is a very serious situation. I was informed on 11 May 2022 that due to recruitment challenges, the number of operational beds in the Linn Dara CAMHS unit was going to be reduced from 24 to 13 on a temporary basis. Deputy Costello is quite right that the most distressed cases are dealt with in Linn Dara. It is the most fantastic facility with a school attached to it with fi…

I do not disagree with anything the Deputies have said. Everybody has the best interests of every child who is on a waiting list and every child who needs to get into one of the approved centres at heart. Everybody feels the same. I am a mother and I feel the exact same. There is not a family in Ireland that, whether directly or indirectly, has not been affected by mental ill-health. Regarding the figures, last year the referrals into CAMHS increased by 5,177 to 22,600, which was unprecedented. In the same period, …