I thank the Ceann Comhairle and the staff for being so accommodating this parliamentary term.

Deputy Sheehan is looking for extra time.

I raise the issue of the community access support team, CAST, in Limerick, which has prevented 133 detentions under section 12 of the Mental Health Act and reduced the number emergency department presentations. It has responded to over 1,000 incidents. There is evidence for this and the University of Limerick published a report last week. It has been extraordinarily successful. It needs a dedicated core budget. It has been transformative in normalising a non-criminalising response to mental health. Will the Government formally establish this team as a national interagency crisis response service in the upcoming budget?

I thank the Deputy for his support for CAST. I am extremely proud of this pilot project, which we started working on in 2022. I compliment Superintendent Andrew Lacey, who has done phenomenal work on this for many years. At our initial conference in UL, we heard from police forces from Canada, elsewhere in North America, Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The pilot has been really impressive. As the Deputy has said, it has resulted in 133 people being deflected away from emergency departments. For anyone who does not know, how it works is that, when gardaí respond, a dedicated mental health clinical nurse practitioner travels in the car and intervenes when it is safe to do so.

I spoke with the superintendent last week. I have also spoken with the regional executive officer, Sandra Broderick. They feel that there is a little bit more work to do before the initiative is ready to mainstream. On funding, as the Deputy will know, we now have six regional health areas. Each regional executive officer can mainstream these types of supports. There is a little bit more to do. We will then be able to roll it out.