At yesterday's meeting of the health committee, the new CEO of the HSE, Mr. Bernard Gloster, said to me in response to a question that we have serious questions to ask about whether we should continue to maintain more than 70 partially staffed child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, teams or whether we should reduce the number to 55 or 50 full teams. I submitted a couple of questions to the Minister a couple of weeks ago, when I first got an inkling of this, but I have not received a response. Therefore, I have a few more questions. Has the Government plans to reduce the number of CAMHS teams? Can the Government guarantee that this will lead to better health outcomes for young people? Will it reduce waiting lists? At present, we have a record high of 4,490 young people waiting for a first appointment. Will what is proposed reduce waiting times? Seven hundred and fifty-two young people have been waiting for more than a year for an appointment. Parents and young people are rightly concerned about this. Are there concrete plans to reduce the number of CAMHS teams or is this just another desperate attempt at kite flying by the HSE and Government?

I thank the Deputy for his question. It is very valid. He is quite right in saying waiting lists have doubled in the past three years. We have had 33% more referrals and the teams managed to allocate 225,000 appointments last year. I have held a series of round-table discussions in the past month or so, the first of which was with representatives of the HSE, the Department and the College of Psychiatrists of Ireland. The second meeting was in relation to all the NGOs that provide services, and the third was with representatives of the National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS, and those in primary care and psychology. It concerned disability services and CAMHS. We are exploring different avenues. We have 74 CAMHS teams all over the country but they are not fully staffed. We are asking whether we should reduce the number and ask parents to drive a little further, the aim being to ensure supports will be in place. We are also considering a hub-and-spoke model. Everything is on the table; nothing has been decided. All we want to do is provide the best supports we can for children and their parents. I will engage with the Deputy on this.