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Dáil
‹ Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation

Child mental health disability team

Summary

Deputy Kenny highlighted a child in need of a mental health intellectual disability team, which is unavailable in CHO 1. The Minister of State said new clinical programmes and specialist teams are being rolled out, including mental health teams for people with intellectual disabilities.

If the Minister was listening to "Morning Ireland" this morning, he will have heard a constituent of mine, Jennifer, speak about what her ten-year-old child, Maggie, is going through. Maggie suffered from cancer as an infant and recovered from it. She suffers from an intellectual disability. She had been using CAMHS and was finding it difficult and hard to manage. Over a year ago, or almost 18 months ago now, CAMHS stated she needed to be under a mental health intellectual disability team. However, there is no mental health intellectual disability team in CHO 1. I understand there are only four teams in the country and people cannot move between them. I raised this with the Tánaiste over a year ago and have raised it several times here, and Jennifer has now raised the matter publicly on the national airwaves. We need the Government to step in to ensure the affected children and their parents can have some hope of getting assistance. Jennifer stays awake all night on many nights and is not able to manage. If she needs medication, she cannot have it prescribed unless she is with one of the teams, but the State refuses to give her one.

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Since I took office, my priority has been to roll out the clinical programmes across all areas. There are five clinical programmes and also five models of care. When I came into this job, there were three eating disorder teams, but we now have 12. We had no ADHD teams for adults but we now have seven funded, with five in place. We have four mental health teams for people with intellectual disabilities, as the Deputy said. I have come from a meeting this morning with the Minister for Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform, Deputy Paschal Donohoe; the Minister for Health, Deputy Donnelly; and the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Burke, to try to secure as much funding as I can for next year's budget to continue to roll out the clinical programmes so we do not have a postcode lottery. It can only be done incrementally, and that is what I am trying to achieve. I am building on it year on year. If the Deputy wants to send me the details of the case, I will certainly have it looked into.

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