The crisis in child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, has escalated to a full-blown emergency. On the watch of this Government, waiting lists for first-time appointments have increased dramatically, while the number of young people waiting more than one year has nearly trebled. It is virtually impossible to access services. The reviews into CAMHS by the Mental Health Commission and the Maskey report were damning. The system is plagued not only by dangerous waiting times but also by alarming issues with clinical governance, high staff turnover and recruitment problems, and the absence of an out-of-hours emergency service. Vulnerable, at-risk children and young people are locked out of the urgent mental health care they so desperately need. They spend years crying out for help and knocking on the door of a system that is broken. It is a wilderness for children and young people suffering with severe depression, anxiety and suicide ideation. Even when young people get inside the system they face alarming levels of dysfunction. Children are prescribed powerful antipsychotic medications with very little intervention. Often, vital follow-up care disappears and children get lost in the system. Children with disabilities in need of a dual diagnosis and mental health care are sent from pillar to post and they fall through the cracks. Those who turn 18 years are cut off and directed to the adult system.

Last night, Teachtaí David Cullinane and Mark Ward and I met with Families for Reform of CAMHS. Their experiences are heartbreaking. One distraught mother told me about her ten-year-old daughter, Maggie. She had already endured cancer and she now suffers with depression, anxiety and self-injurious behaviour. Maggie was on the urgent list for a year before she received a CAMHS meeting. She received an assessment for an intellectual disability but she was not accepted into the service because there is no specialist in the area. Maggie is in a full-blown mental health crisis. She receives no care. She is in distress and she does not leave the house apart from going to school.

Another mother told me about her teenage daughter who suffers from severe anxiety, depression and constant panic attacks. She would not leave the house and withdrew from her friends. She deteriorated by the day. When referred to CAMHS she was told she would have to wait a minimum of six months. It then took a further two months to get a reply from her first meeting and another three months for a follow-up appointment. This mother had to chase and chase to get care for her daughter. After a 15-month ordeal, there has been some improvement but this young woman has missed almost one year of school. These children are not alone. Their stories are replicated in the thousands. Children deserve better.

Tá níos fearr tuillte ag páistí. Níor chóir go mbeadh orthu fanacht cráite agus trína chéile le haghaidh sheirbhísí meabhairshláinte. Ní mór don Rialtas gníomhú anois láithreach. Sinn Féin's Mental Health (Amendment) Bill 2023, which is before the Dáil this evening, calls for change as a first step. It gives the Mental Health Commission the statutory power to regulate CAMHS. This would empower the commission to implement its 49 recommendations for improvement, tackle the waiting lists and end the scandal of children being inappropriately admitted to adult acute psychiatric wards.

Will the Minister support the Sinn Féin Bill tonight? Will the Government vote in favour of the Sinn Féin Bill tonight?

I thank Deputy McDonald for raising what the Government accepts to be a very important issue. The Deputy in her question made reference to Maggie and other families who have approached Deputy McDonald. They have also approached Deputies on all sides of the House. Through our constituency work, of course, we are all deeply familiar with the challenges that are there for families and carers looking after young children, teenagers and young adults who are experiencing mental health difficulties and, at times, many other vulnerabilities and needs in their lives.

The Government will continue to act to make available resources to make a difference to those who need additional support and help in their lives. It is the reason that in community CAMHS teams we have seen an increase to 820 fully funded posts. These are jobs funded by the Government throughout the length and breadth of the country to respond to Maggie and all the other young men and women who need the help that we, as a Government and an Oireachtas, want to give them. If I look at how this figure stands, it is an increase of 68 roles versus where we were last year. This will be further added to by an additional €10 million, which was announced by the Minister of State, Deputy Butler. That will look at how we will provide additional roles and posts throughout the country where we accept they are seriously needed.

In terms of the budget available to respond to these many important needs, for the CAMHS element of the health services alone, it now stands at €146.5 million. In addition, a further €110 million is being provided to community-based organisations to help them to respond to the needs we know are there and to add to the services that are directly provided for and directly funded by the State.

In her very important question, the Deputy covered all the issues that we know are continuing. As I speak about these figures, and in acknowledging Maggie and all of the other lives that Deputies on this side of the House encounter too, I know, as we all know, the many stories of needs that need to be better met and of young lives that need additional support. This is why, for example, the Government has now ensured that, for the first time in the history of the State, we will have a national office for young mental health in the HSE. It is why the Minister for Health, Deputy Donnelly, and the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, have ensured we now have a national clinical lead in the HSE and an assistant national director for children and youth mental health. These roles have been put in place to ensure this additional funding and these additional roles translate into the additional services the Government wants to see provided.

In terms of the additional measures that were provided in the budget this year to make a difference to those whom we know need further help, this is why we will expand multidisciplinary teams, led by CAMHS with all of the various health professionals in them, to respond to the lives we want to further help. It is why there will be made available, on a trial and pilot basis, the development of a central referral mechanism to better ensure the resources, money, jobs and posts we are making available go to those who need them most.

With regard to the specific question Deputy McDonald ended on, we will be putting forward this evening a timed amendment. The specific reason is that the Government will bring forward for, we hope, the summer legislative session-----

It has had four years.

------a further mental health Bill with 35 different sections, all of which will be focused on the regulation of mental health services. We believe the Bill, which will be brought forward shortly, will provide a different and more effective way of responding to the regulation needs that we acknowledge are there.

With respect, that is all just rhetoric. The problem is the Government is not responding to Maggie. She is ten years old. She is receiving no services. She is in a full-blown crisis and her mother is desperate.

That is Maggie's story. The Minister's assertions do not change that fact at all. What is the response for Maggie? Is it a Minister taking to his feet and rattling off figures and budgetary arithmetic? That is all well and good, but the problem is it is not responding to Maggie. It is not answering the needs of that family. I appreciate that Deputies across the House, including the Ministers, have heard these stories. I can only imagine their frustration listening to that. If I were sitting where they are, I would be frustrated by a Government that clearly has large resources at its disposal but is failing and whose only response to reasonable and important legislation to ensure that CAMHS is regulated appropriately is to kick the can down the road for six or nine months. I asked whether the Government would support this important step forward. The answer to that is “No”. The Minister just did not have the heart to answer me directly.

Hear, hear.

The Deputy is not getting away with that. In my answer, I responded with two points. First, I acknowledged that we as a Government felt every bit as much as the Deputy the needs that existed.

Then show us.

However, we correspond that with a commitment to make a difference. I will not allow Deputy McDonald to paint a familiar trope, which she seeks to paint regularly, of all the compassion in the House sitting over there. We are as aware as anyone else in this House-----

The Government does not show it.

-----of the difference that needs to be made.

Second, I outlined something with which Deputy McDonald is clearly uncomfortable. I outlined the detail of what the Government was doing. I outlined the resources, jobs and reform measures that are in place to help Maggie and others. We acknowledge that our efforts are not reaching Maggie in the way we want them to.

And thousands of other Maggies.

Deputy, please.

They are reaching others, and what we are determined to do through the measures I have outlined is help even more. There is nothing rhetorical about the fact that, since August 2023, the waiting list for CAMHS has fallen. It has not fallen by as much as we would want, but it has fallen. There is nothing rhetorical in the fact that approximately 94% of all urgent cases raised with CAMHS are responded to within 72 hours. We know that more needs to be done, but-----

The Government is just not prepared to do it. Okay. Thanks for that.

-----we are supplying resources and roles and we are corresponding that with the reform measures to make a difference and help even more.