Over the weekend, the Psychiatric Nurses Association confirmed that 11 out of 23 beds would close until September at the Linn Dara site in Cherry Orchard. We were here five years ago. Alarm bells ring when a state-of-the-art facility such as Linn Dara, which provides an absolutely vital service for young people, cannot provide staff. If this happened five years ago, why did the HSE and the Department of Health not foresee this? It is just not acceptable, in 2022, that a facility such as Linn Dara should have to close beds. Nobody accepts that, but it has happened. Will somebody answer these questions, not just for me, but most importantly for the parents and the people who will use this facility?

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 challenges. Every effort has been made with agency staff and trying to bring staff in from multidisciplinary child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, teams in the community. Unfortunately, the issue with staffing is why beds have been closed. Four triaged young people are currently waiting for admittance to the Linn Dara facility. Some 50% of those are in hospital and 50% are receiving community supports. Across the whole country, 11 young people have been triaged and are waiting for supports.