I welcome Charlotte and her mother, Emma, who are mental health youth campaigners, to the Public Gallery as guests of Deputy Martin Browne.

Yesterday, during the debate, the Taoiseach praised the Government for being "extraordinarily diligent and dedicated" in the area of mental health. I will quote the Taoiseach some facts. Under his Government, there has been a 40% increase in the number of children presenting to emergency departments for mental healthcare; more than 4,000 children are waiting for appointments with the child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS; there are fewer CAMHS beds in operation today than there were when the Government was formed; there are over 2,000 young children waiting for an appointment with Jigsaw, some for 20 weeks or more; and there are 10,500 children waiting on primary care psychology, 4,000 of whom have been waiting for more than a year. Does the Taoiseach stand by his comment yesterday or does he accept that his Government has been a complete failure in the provision of children's mental health services?

I stand by the comments that I made yesterday. I met with Jigsaw at the weekend, actually, and had a very good discussion with young people who have used the Jigsaw service and are advocates for it. Of course, there is significant room for continued improvement and enhancement of services. Particularly post-Covid, there has been an increase in anxiety levels and mental well-being issues. That is definitely the case, particularly among young people. That has created additional pressures, not only on CAMHS but also on the NGO sector. One of the interesting issues that arose was the referral process, particularly for young people, from services such as Jigsaw to CAMHS. These are issues that we need to resolve because there is not uniformity across the country.

I thank the Taoiseach.

I will say this. The Minister of State with responsibility for mental health, Deputy Butler, is working flat out on all of these issues and her diligence cannot be called into question.