I want to return to the Children's Rights Alliance report card, which was published today. It records that some progress has been made, but the Government gets a D grade for child homelessness and a very damning E grade for youth mental health.

The Children's Rights Alliance described serious failings in the child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, including more than 140 children prescribed antipsychotic medications and then lost to follow-up, as “the tip of the iceberg”. As the Taoiseach knows, children continue to be placed in adult psychiatric units and waiting lists for CAMHS have nearly doubled on the watch of his Government. He has failed to invest in mental health services and his policy, Sharing the Vision, has no costs and no timeframe. When will we see a real, costed plan and when will he fully resource CAMHS so that children and young people can get access to the mental health services they need when they need them?

There were many questions there. The HSE, the Government and I are fully committed to ensuring the most appropriate supports are there for young people. I might put a little context on this, which does not always happen across the floor of the Dáil. A total of 21,000 children are currently receiving the supports of CAMHS. There were 225,000 appointments last year among 73 CAMHS teams working the length and the breadth of the country, but what was excluded from the report was the fact that the number of referrals to CAMHS increased by 33% over the past two years. Notwithstanding the difficulties the CAMHS teams have, they saw 21% more appointments - more children - last year. I am very conscious, every time we stand up in the Dáil and tear apart the mental health services, that €135 million was spent on CAMHS supports last year. There are 73 teams working today looking after 21,000 children. Notwithstanding the difficulties, many very good supports are being provided to those 21,000 children.

The number of children in adult psychiatric units has fallen to 20 in the past year, and no consultant psychiatrist will ever take the opportunity to put a child into a psychiatric unit - we are talking about 16- or 17-year-olds - unless it is extremely necessary. I would like to talk to anyone who says putting a child into an adult psychiatric unit overnight for that child's safety so that he or she might not attempt suicide is not the right thing to do. What should we do instead, leave them out the door?

We should have the proper facilities for them. That is the Minister of State's job.

Deputy Bacik, please.

That was a ridiculous answer.

I think we will agree yesterday's Windsor Framework announcement represents a breakthrough and a chance to restore the democratic institutions of the Good Friday Agreement, and I welcome the Taoiseach's announcement that he will provide briefings to Opposition parties. I would ask that that might be done this week given the statements are to be taken, as we understand, in Government time next week. As Claire Hanna MP, a member of our sister party, the Social Democratic and Labour Party, SDLP, has said, the framework announcement can be heralded as a way forward for those genuinely interested in consensus and prosperity.

We are concerned by the tone of reception from certain quarters, even though we see a perceived improvement in relations between the Governments across the two islands. If we listen to some members of the Democratic Unionist Party, DUP, the tone is jarring with the more conciliatory words that have been spoken by Jeffrey Donaldson. As one of the custodians of the Good Friday Agreement, is the Taoiseach concerned we are seeing the emergence of a hard-line unionist veto and that the Stormont brake may function to enable that sort of veto?

We will arrange the briefings with agreement by the parties to do that this week. My Department is already working on that and will probably be in touch with Opposition leaders' offices today around having those briefings.

I think we are at a very sensitive stage and I do not think anyone in this House, least of all me, wants to say anything that might jeopardise the acceptance of the Windsor Framework, so the only thing I would say is this. The Stormont brake is there, in many ways to counterbalance the consent mechanism that is already in the protocol. The protocol can be disapplied in full only by a vote of the Assembly, and the Stormont brake tries to counterbalance that by having a mechanism whereby 30 members of the Assembly, from two parties, can red-flag an issue with the UK Government to have it discussed in the joint committee and dealt with there, but that can be used only if the Assembly is up and running. That is one thing to bear in mind, and all the more reason to have the Assembly up and running.