I want to raise with the Taoiseach the scandalous issue of the capacity of young teenagers to access child and adolescent mental health services and the enormous stress that their families have to endure because of what is an appalling situation - I am not exaggerating - across the country. Waiting lists to access services have jumped by 28% to 2,908 people. The number of people waiting for longer than one year has increased by 78%. There are 6,000 children waiting for primary care psychology appointments, 1,784 of whom have been waiting for longer than a year. These are the HSE's own data on the services in question. For some reason, the Cork-Kerry region is extraordinarily bad in terms of the numbers waiting longer than a year at 158 out of 324.

The capacity of the Department of Health, the Minister and the system to respond seems very poor. One in three posts has been filled in mental health services from 2015 to 2016. In that time, 520 approved positions were allocated, but it was nowhere near what was required. Some 2,000 extra staff were required, yet only 93 additional staff have been recruited in 2017. In child and adolescent services alone, people say that close to 600 staff are required before we can get those services to where they need to be.

I have a caseload of children and young teenagers that is quite shocking. In one case, there was a June 2016 assessment of need, a complaint was made that November and, eventually, a solicitor had to write a letter. In May 2017, the assessment was carried through. I have a list, as I am sure every Deputy does, of young children who have been unable to access mental health services.

The Roscommon report, published on 1 September, illustrates more dysfunctionality.

There is also the incredible situation of the loss of a significant number of nursing staff. The report estimated a shortage of 50 nurses in Roscommon and about 100 in Galway while money was being handed back. For two years, Deputy James Browne and I have been going to both the Taoiseach's predecessor and the former Minister of State with responsibility, Deputy McEntee. Who is in charge? Where is the Government oversight? Where is the ministerial oversight? There is an incredible inertia in our mental health services, an incredible lack of joined-up operations and of people working together as they should. Nobody is in charge. Ministers seem to be conduits receiving information and passing information on. No one is drilling down in terms of what is going on on the ground. Ministers for Health and Ministers of State with responsibility for mental health seem to be in that position to get promoted out of it. The lack of achievement over the past number of years in this area is truly shocking and unacceptable for the young children and teenagers and their families.

Everyone in the House understands the need to improve our mental health services, particularly for young people. Everyone in this House understands how important mental health is. One of the positive things that has happened in the past number of years and decade is a much greater willingness by people to talk about mental health, to treat it seriously as an issue and to improve services. The question the Deputy asks is quite a valid one. It is not simply a case of resources. If the Deputy looks at the budget for mental health in 2012, the year after his party left office, he will see it was €711 million. This year it will be €853 million. In a period when budgets were very tight, the mental health budget increased by €140 million. The question we need to ask ourselves is why we are not getting better value for that investment and why we are not seeing significant improvements in services. The HSE has statutory responsibility for mental health services. There is a national director of mental health and a director general above the national director. Political responsibility rests with the Minister of State, Deputy Jim Daly, who is relatively newly appointed. He reports to the Minister, Deputy Harris, who reports to me. It is important to acknowledge there are unacceptable delays in people receiving the appointments they need. It is also equally important to acknowledge some of the progress that has been made. As I mentioned, there has been an increase in funding of €140 million a year since the Deputy's party left office. We now have the national forensic mental health hospital under construction in Portrane, which will allow us to close a very old facility in Dundrum. There have been improvements to counselling services, including new Jigsaw sites - one in Cork, which the Deputy will be familiar with, two in Dublin and one in Limerick. We are also seeing the continued development of community health teams and the child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS. Specifically on the issue the Deputy raised on psychology, approval has now been granted for additional staffing resources and this will include 114 additional assistant psychology posts. There has also been an increase in the intake of undergraduate nursing from 60 last year to 130 this year, which will more than double the number of undergraduate psychiatric nurses being recruited. It raises the fundamental question that we always run into when it comes to health, which is that more staff, resources and funding do not necessarily result in better services and outcomes. It is an area on which we will need to really focus in the years ahead.

We have been hearing this for the past four years. The Taoiseach's reply is somewhat similar to what Deputy Enda Kenny or the former Minister of State with responsibility, Deputy McEntee, would have given us. If the Taoiseach talked to the parents he would know they will not be satisfied with the idea we all have a better understanding of mental health services. Neither will they be satisfied with the passing of the buck and the sort of detached commentary that suggests it is somebody else's job to do this. It is the Government's job to drill down and make sure that things get done. The extraordinary waiting times that people have to experience must end. We have made suggestions to the Government on this such as utilising non-governmental organisations far more effectively than it has and to do things differently in respect of the private sector. We have met with resistance, inertia and have received no answers from either the former Minister or the Government on this crucial question.

Last Monday, I met a family with a six and a half year old child. They have been contacting the services since the child was three and a half years old and still cannot get an overall assessment of need. It is about time we stopped all the language and spin and got on top of this for the sake of the families concerned.

Go raibh maith agat.

These families are listening to language such as, "We're going to create a republic of opportunities."

Go raibh maith agat, a Theachta. Tá an t-am caite.

These children and young people have been denied opportunities and will continue to be denied them-----

An Taoiseach.

-----until somebody assumes political responsibility and takes charge of this specific area-----

Go raibh maith agat.

-----of child and adolescent mental health-----

Tá an t-am caite.

-----and ensures that people can get timely access-----

Tá an t-am caite.

-----to the services that they so desperately require.

Caithfidh mé bheith féaráilte. Tá am an Teachta caite. Tá a fhios agam gur ceist phráinneach agus tábhachtach í seo. Tá bomaite amháin ag an Taoiseach.

The Deputy asked me a straight factual question and I gave him a straight factual answer. Statutory responsibility lies with the Health Service Executive. That is what the Health Act stipulates. The Health Act was passed by the Houses of the Oireachtas and it was brought into the Houses by the Deputy when he was Minister for Health and Children.

No, it was not actually.

That is where the statutory responsibility lies.

That is a silly point.

However, I fully accept-----

The Taoiseach should just deal with the issue.

An Taoiseach.

-----that, of course, political responsibility lies with the Minister of State with responsibility for mental health, Deputy Jim Daly, who reports to the Minister, Deputy Harris, who reports to me. I fully accept political responsibility for dealing with these problems and I fully accept that there are problems that need to be dealt with.

The Deputy will be aware that today the CSO will produce provisional figures on suicide, indicating a decrease in the number of suicides by 11.5%. Of course, any death by suicide is one too many. Almost all of us in this House, including me, have been affected by the issue of suicide. Suicide is not just about the person who takes his or her life.

Go raibh maith agat.

It is also about the impact on their families and friends, and people who think about what might have been done and whether they could have done more. However-----

Go raibh maith agat, a Thaoisigh.

-----it is welcome to see that reduction.

An Teachta-----

Part of it is down to the work that was done in previous years, with a trebling of the funding for the National Office for Suicide Prevention and the suicide prevention strategy introduced by the former Minister of State, Kathleen Lynch, and I when we were in the Department of Health. We will continue to work on these issues and-----

I thank the Taoiseach.

-----continue to ensure we have better outcomes.