There is a crisis across the country in child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, and the Government is asleep at the wheel as it unfolds. According to figures supplied to my colleague, Deputy James Browne, Fianna Fáil's spokesperson on mental health, 6,181 children were waiting for primary care psychology appointments at the end of January, of whom 1,635 had been waiting for over a year to see somebody. Time is of the essence in dealing with children and teenagers. There is a very narrow window for assisting them, treating their conditions and putting them on a path to recovery. That window has been made even narrower for 1,635 children who have been deprived of opportunities that should have been made available to them. As a direct consequence, unfortunately, 81 children were admitted to adult mental health units across the country in 2017. Such settings are utterly and completely unsuitable for their needs and care programmes.

There are major difficulties in attracting staff to work in CAMHS. A staff complement of 1,237 is required for a full community-based CAMHS service, but figures supplied to Deputy James Browne show that just 657 staff were in place in 2017. If current recruitment trends continue, the full complement will not be in place until 2030,which is 12 years away. The futures of children are being put at risk, while the HSE dawdles. How many more thousands of children will lose out on treatment? How many more thousands of parents will have to endure intolerable stress? This is a nationwide problem. Every Deputy has dealt with the issue in his or her constituency office. I deal with it in my constituency of Mayo. It has been highlighted in counties Wexford and Waterford in recent weeks following Dr. Kieran Moore's decision to resign from his post as a specialist paediatric consultant. As he explained to the Joint Committee on the Future of Mental Health Care:

I am resigning from Wexford because it is untenable and unsafe. Two of my colleagues are doing the same.

Such a damning indictment by a hugely respected professional should serve as a wake-up call for the Tánaiste and his Government colleagues on the reality of CAMHS. What actions are being taken by the Government to address the crisis in it? What specific recruitment plans are in place to address the shortfall in the service? What does the Tánaiste say to the 6,181 children who are languishing on the CAMHS waiting lists and to their parents?

I thank the Deputy for observing the time limit. I ask all Deputies to do likewise, especially because we started five minutes late owing to the lack of a quorum.

I thank Deputy Dara Calleary for raising this issue. The Minister for Health and his Government colleagues are aware that it is serious. Timely access to care is essential as part of good health provision, particularly in CAMHS. The Government has shown its commitment to achieving this by increasing funding for mental health services by over €200 million since 2012, as well as the number of staff. Additional staff are badly needed. The Minister of State, Deputy Jim Daly, has scheduled a round-table meeting of all CAMHS service providers in the coming weeks. While there is no doubt that recruitment in this area is difficult, it is being addressed on a continuous basis. The HSE is operating a national and international recruitment campaign for CAMHS consultant psychiatrists. The recruitment of 114 assistant psychologists and 22 psychologists for primary care child psychology services has been completed, with 111 assistant psychologists and 20 psychologists in their posts. Improvements are being made to children's counselling services. The development of new Jigsaw sites in Cork, Dublin and Limerick will bring the total to 13 sites nationally. I am more than aware of the number of children on waiting lists to receive the treatment and diagnosis they need. There is a sense of urgency within the Government. Recruitment in this area is not easy, but there is a very active national and international recruitment campaign to try to deal with the shortfall in staff.

The Tánaiste has said recruitment is not easy, but there has been a substantial number of resignations. I have referred to Dr. Kieran Moore's comment that the system is "untenable and unsafe". The current president of the College of Psychiatrists in Ireland, Dr. John Hillery, worked with the HSE until earlier this year. He has resigned from it because of his pure frustration at its inability to deal with this issue and lack of interest in doing so. He has said doctors are facing the "moral distress" of not being able to access the resources or care needed to help their patients. He has suggested doctors are finding themselves in "ethically compromising situations" on a regular basis in a system where bureaucracy has "gone mad". The Tánaiste has referred to the difficulties in recruiting consultant psychiatrists and psychologists, but there seems to be no difficulty in recruiting managers. In his evidence to the Joint Committee on the Future of Mental Health Care Dr. Moore said that even though he was a front-line professional, he did not understand the role of managers in counties Waterford and Wexford. It seems that, despite the Tánaiste's words and undoubted personal commitment, the 6,181 children to whom I have referred are facing a stark reality. The prospect of getting them off the waiting lists seems to be very remote. Is bureaucracy more important than treating children? What reassurance can the Tánaiste provide for parents in counties Waterford and Wexford who have not yet been given any information by the HSE on their children's care paths in the coming weeks and months?

The Minister of State, Deputy Jim Daly, met HSE officials and CAMHS HSE local representatives this week to discuss the specific actions that needed to be taken in the south east where I know there are specific pressures, as the decisions taken by consultants certainly confirm. Their frustration has led to resignations. The response from the Government needs to be the delivery of services. If we are to do this, we need to recruit more specialist staff. We certainly need to recruit from abroad. In the medium term we need to ensure we will produce more undergraduates in this area and that they will stay in Ireland.

Improvements in consultant recruitment are taking place. In urgent cases, consultants may be recruited at the ninth point of the payscale. In summation, the Government through the Minister of State, Deputy Jim Daly, with a sense of urgency recognises there is a staffing shortfall here. It is more acute in some parts of the country than others. We are actively ensuring that a recruitment campaign delivers the numbers needed to fill those gaps. I assure the Deputy there are no funding restrictions in respect of doing that.