At the end of February, on Leaders' Questions, I raised the case of Maggie, a ten-year-old child in desperate need of mental health support. Maggie has endured cancer and suffers from depression, anxiety and self-injurious behaviour. She is in very serious distress and does not leave the house except to go to school. Maggie was on an urgent list for over a year before getting a CAMHS meeting. An assessment for intellectual disability followed but she was not accepted into the service because there is no specialist in her area. Now Maggie is in a mental health crisis because she has not received the care and support she so badly needs. Maggie's distraught mother came to the Oireachtas yesterday pleading for help for her daughter. She came here in February to make the same plea, but nothing has changed since. Maggie is still not getting the care for which her mother has fought so hard and for so long, and she is not alone.

Maggie's mother was in the Oireachtas yesterday attending the launch of a report by Families for Reform of CAMHS, a group of more than 1,200 families whose children have been denied the services of CAMHS or who have not received sufficient care. The report will be published tomorrow but the group's presentation laid bare the full-blown emergency in the provision of child and adolescent mental health care. The report describes the dramatic increase in waiting lists, with so many children waiting more than a year to be accepted to CAMHS. The vast majority say their children deteriorated while waiting. Children with a dual diagnosis of an intellectual disability or autism and mental health difficulties, or those with ADHD, suicidal ideation or eating disorders, are sent from pillar to post in search of support.

Many parents report taking their children to the emergency department to receive care. A staggering 69% of those parents surveyed have been forced to seek private care. This places a really unfair and massive financial burden on parents, and many simply cannot afford it. One parent quoted in the report stated it breaks their heart to think what kind of life their daughter could have had if she had not been thrown on the scrap heap because her parents could not afford an earlier diagnosis. The parent suggests earlier diagnosis might have made a difference but that this will never be known.

These children and their families are crying out for help. They spend years knocking on the door of a system that is broken. Vulnerable children fall through ever-widening cracks. Tá cúram meabhairshláinte do leanaí agus do dhaoine óga i ngéarchéim. Caithfidh an Rialtas beart fiúntach a dhéanamh chun deireadh a chur leis an scannal atá le seirbhísí.

I would like the Taoiseach to intervene directly at this point to ensure Maggie gets the care she needs. I would like him to make that commitment to her mother today. I ask for meaningful action to fix the broken system. The first step has to be lifting the recruitment embargo so CAMHS teams can be filled and waiting lists tackled with urgency. I also want the Taoiseach to legislate to give the Mental Health Commission the statutory power to regulate CAMHS. I ask that the Taoiseach's colleague, the Minister of State with responsibility for mental health, meet representatives of Families for Reform of CAMHS, study their report, hear their views and bring about the changes they are asking for.

I thank Deputy McDonald for raising what is an extremely important issue. I share her view that more needs to be done and that we need to make much more progress. I thank the Deputy for raising the case of Maggie, in particular. Indeed, I would be very happy to make contact with Maggie's mother and engage in any way I can. I understand the Minister of State for mental health has met the group the Deputy referred to, Families for Reform of CAMHS. I am very happy to have ongoing engagement, as is the Minister of State, Deputy Butler.

For the benefit of people watching at home, I should state CAMHS provides a range of services to children and adolescents in need of mental health services. Evidence shows that around 2% of children and young people need the support of specialist CAMHS multidisciplinary teams. As detailed in the HSE's national service plan for this year, CAMHS expects to receive about 23,000 referrals over the course of the year.

I can point to true figures that show we have seen a very significant increase in mental health service funding year on year. Indeed, the mental health budget for 2024, of over €1.3 billion, entails a strong focus on investing in youth mental health, as is quite right and proper.

There are some encouraging signs although I accept we have much more to do in this space. There were 3,583 children on CAMHS waiting lists in April 2024. This number was far too high but it did represent a decrease of 778 compared with the previous year. There are some signs that, as we invest more, staff more and reform the services, we are seeing improvements in waiting times for CAMHS. The data also show that around 95% of urgent referrals to CAMHS in April were responded to within 72 hours. The severity of presenting symptoms, as well as the assessment of risk, is always taken into account in respect of waiting times, with every effort made to prioritise urgent cases so the referrals of young people with high-risk presentations are addressed as soon as possible.

There has been a significant increase in mental health staffing numbers, to which the Deputy referred. There was an increase of 476 in mental health service staffing numbers between December 2021 and December 2023. This year, 68 new posts have been allocated under budget 2024, and HSE child and youth mental health care will have over 130 new posts through the €10 million recently announced by the Minister of State with responsibility for mental health. My understanding is that the HSE is working to recruit for those vacancies as quickly as possible. I want people to know that there are funded posts currently that the HSE is endeavouring to fill. I assure the Deputy that it is not an issue of an embargo or recruitment pauses; there are funded posts that we are currently trying to fill.

More broadly, we now have a dedicated national office for child and youth mental health within the HSE. This development, delivered by the Minister, is very significant because it will provide the leadership, operational oversight and management of all the service delivery and improvement. I absolutely assure the Deputy that this is an issue on which I am very happy to work with her. I am very happy to do as she requests in terms of ensuring there is direct and ongoing engagement by the Government with Families for Reform of CAMHS. I will certainly follow the outcome of the report closely. We will continue to invest more, by way of budget and staff, in our mental health services.

On legislation, on which the Deputy has raised points, the new mental health Bill will be published shortly. It presents a genuine opportunity for us to work on a cross-party basis in the House to overhaul and update mental health legislation. I look forward to working with Deputies on all sides of the House on that.

The Taoiseach is right that the Minister met the families. That happened in October. It is now June, and there has been no progress from their perspective. They are very disappointed.

Every day that these children are on waiting lists or are denied services is damaging in the here and now and to their future prospects. With the greatest of respect, for the Taoiseach to tell me that a waiting list of 3,583 is an improvement on a previous scenario is no comfort at all. That is a deeply unacceptable situation.

I raised with the Taoiseach the issue of staffing and the embargo. He seemed to dismiss the staffing concern but as he knows, the Psychiatric Nurses Association of Ireland is balloting for strike action such is its concern about the staffing of services. It describes mental health services as being "at a critical tipping point" and has raised specific concerns about child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS. The Government has been slow with the legislative piece but I want to come back to the embargo, which needs to be lifted. Recruitment needs to happen unhindered and the CAMHS teams need to be filled if these children are to have any chance of getting the services they need.

I again thank the Deputy for raising the issue. I assure her that the words "dismissive" or "dismissing" could never be attached to me or this Government when it comes to this issue. It is an issue on which everybody in this House and everybody in Ireland wants to make more progress. There has been a significant increase in mental health presentations, particularly among younger people, post Covid, not just in Ireland but internationally. We know the impact that recent years have had on our youngest citizens. I say to the parents and young people watching in that waiting lists are falling. That is not cold comfort; it is a real benefit to the young people coming off those lists, their families and their communities. Staff are being recruited. We can have debates about recruitment levels and workforce planning in the HSE. That is no problem, and I am happy to do it. On this issue, we should not mislead, accidentally or otherwise, because 130 additional posts are funded for the very services about which the Deputy is talking. Those staff will be recruited during the year.

The mental health Bill we are bringing forward will deal with the issue of oversight of all 76 CAMHS teams. A lot of good work is under way in this area and there is much more to do. The Government will have ongoing engagement with the advocacy group the Deputy mentioned.