Lynch pledges to ‘pursue’ staff crisis

THE minister of state with responsibility for mental health has pledged to “pursue” the staffing crisis within the mental health services in order to ensure the safety of the services into the future.

Labour’s Kathleen Lynch yesterday urged the HSE to lift the moratorium on recruitment in the mental health sector to allow 100 staff to be taken on.

However, documents obtained by the Irish Examiner show that 100 exemptions granted in 2010 were not been utilised as expected because no additional money was given to local areas to take on staff.