Oireachtas committee to hear of 'largely non-existent' mental health supports for children

In 2021, Ireland ranked in the bottom third of 41 OECD countries in terms of child mental health. File picture

A group representing more than 800 families engaging with the HSE’s child mental health service is set to tell the Oireachtas that mental health supports are “largely non-existent”.

The advocacy group Families for Reform of Camhs (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services) will tell the Oireachtas Health Committee on Wednesday that “children nationwide are being failed and our families left alone without adequate support at a time when we need it most”.

Spokesperson Hannah Ní Ghiolla Mhairtín is expected to tell the committee that roughly 4,400 children are awaiting first-time Camhs appointments, but that even once they have access, "serious challenges" remain engaging with the service.

She will say that therapeutic supports are “extemely hard to access”, with many children offered medication alone and some families have been told “their child would be discharged if they did not accept medication”.

“We have families who have been discharged and not told about it. We have families who were left without support when weaning their child off serious medications,” Ms Ní Ghiolla Mhairtín is expected to say.

Only 12% of the group’s members have a care plan in place, she will say, while 35% of the group’s members “would like to make a complaint but have chosen not to because they are worried about how it would impact their child’s care”.

“It is so difficult to get into Camhs in the first place, that families feel they have to accept whatever is offered,” she will say, adding that for those “who can’t access support now, when they desperately need it, it is heartbreaking”.

Ireland is currently ranked as having the highest level of difficulty in accessing mental health services across all 27 EU member states. An average of 44% of Irish people seeking such treatment have difficulty in doing so compared with the EU figure of 25%.

What's your view on this issue?

You can tell us here

Meanwhile, in 2021, Ireland ranked in the bottom third of 41 OECD countries in terms of child mental health.

“For most of our members, it wasn’t until we went looking for help that we realised that mental health supports and a functioning mental health service is largely non-existent in Ireland,” Ms Ní Ghiolla Mhairtín will tell the committee on Wednesday.

Her group is calling for several reforms of mental health services in Ireland.

They include a call for the provision of an annual ringfenced budget for Camhs — rather than it being apportioned from the main health budget — which would see prior commitments by the HSE taken into account, and for the staffing shortage within Camhs to be addressed.

The group is also seeking for the issues preventing access to Camhs to be remedied to eliminate the geographic inconsistency that exists for the acceptance of medical referrals to the service.