Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 18 December 2013
4. Deputy Billy Kelleher asked the Minister for Health the way in which community mental health services will be developed in 2014; the new funding being provided for same; the number of new posts this will support; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [54387/13]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, spoke about mental health services recently in the Seanad. There is no doubt that this area has been the Cinderella of the health system for many years. There is a commitment to A Vision for Change, but what is needed now is the financial commitment to implement it. While the Minister of State has made valiant efforts, she is not receiving a great deal of support from some of her colleagues in this area. We must have clarity as to how many people will be recruited in 2014 and 2015 to make up the shortfall left by previous years of underfunding.
I have never found there to be a lack of support for my endeavours from any of my colleagues, including Opposition Members.
The Minister of State threatened to resign at one point.
The current economic environment presents a significant challenge for the health system generally in delivering services. However, mental health is being treated as a priority in so far as possible and I am pleased that a further substantial ring-fenced allocation will be provided next year. The announcement in budget 2014 of €20 million for mental health is in line with a commitment in the programme for Government to accelerate the pace of change to develop a modern, patient-centred and recovery-orientated mental health service. Despite serious resource pressures overall, funding of €90 million has been made available since 2012 up to the end 2014 that is specifically earmarked for mental health and suicide prevention.
This funding will enable the Health Service Executive to continue to develop and modernise mental health services in line with the recommendations in A Vision for Change and allow for the recruitment of between 250 and 280 additional staff to enhance adult community mental health teams, child and adolescent mental health teams, and specialist mental health teams, including in the area of elder psychiatry. The recruitment process for these new posts will commence in the first quarter of 2014, with all posts targeted to be in place by the fourth quarter
The HSE's national service plan for 2014, which has been submitted to the Minister for Health, outlines the types and volume of health and personal services to be provided in 2014 within the overall level of funding provided. I expect the plan to be published today.
The problem here is the language being used and the way in which the figures are being massaged. There has been underfunding in the past two years; that is a fact. The Minister, Deputy James Reilly, stole the allocation for mental health, taking it into the big black hole of his Estimates.
The Deputy is spouting fantasies.
Commitments were given that there would be an accelerated recruitment process and the necessary staff would be in place, that is, whole-time equivalents dealing with people in vulnerable positions. That has not happened. The Minister of State is playing catch-up from a position of absolute underfunding in recent years.
That is precisely right.
I wonder why we are in that position.
It was the Minister who robbed €35 million from the mental health budget.
I remind Deputy Kelleher that this is Question Time. Does he have a question?
It was the Minister who took that money. We have had enough of hearing the same old nonsense on this issue.
The Deputy must put his question.
Will the Minister agree that he is engaged in absolute nonsense? The fact is that the mental health budget was used for reasons other than those identified. The moneys were supposed to be ring-fenced for a recruitment process for mental health services, but that did not happen.
It should have been done years ago.
The Minister of State to respond, although I am not sure what is the question.
It would appear that undue influence is being brought to bear on Deputy Kelleher on this issue, and it is very recent.
It might be also long lasting.
The 890 posts that were provided to develop our mental health services in 2012 and 2013 are indisputable facts. Those people are in their posts. The Deputy will know that I take a very clear view of the world. These people's salaries have to be paid, and they are salaries commensurate with the professionalism of those staff and the very specific jobs they are doing. How does the Deputy suppose their salaries are being paid?
There are particular areas where we have a difficulty in recruiting people. As I said, we will recruit an additional 250 to 280 staff in 2014. In my first year in office we recruited 414 staff, of whom 96% are in post. There is a difficulty in filling the remainder simply because qualified persons are not available, but we continue the process. The Deputy's problem is that he is reluctant to allow the facts to get in the way of the story.
It is important to look at what the Minister of State inherited in terms of the number of people working in mental health services and where we are at in this regard at the end of 2013. By any credible stretch of the imagination, the bottom line is that there are far fewer people working in the area of mental health than there were before. That is a fact. Taking credit for recruiting people is untenable when the large numbers who have left mean there are actually now fewer people dealing with the area of mental health. That has come about because there was no aggressive recruitment process in 2011 and 2012. The Minister of State is now attempting to make up for the shortfall.
The Deputy is wrong and so is his adviser.
That is what is happening.
Does the Deputy have a question?
My question is whether the Minister of the State will again threaten to resign in light of the failure to secure the full complement of staff necessary to implement the commitments given in the programme for Government and A Vision for Change.
I will deal with the last fantasy first. I never threatened to resign and I never would; that is not what I do. I have a job to do and I intend to do it, despite the fact there is so much opposition to the implementation of A Vision for Change. I have found in the past two years that everybody is in favour of that plan until it is happening in their area, when suddenly it is the wrong way to go and the wrong thing to do.
We are putting in place a modern system. It will not be the same system as we had before because we need a different skill mix. Nurses will be needed, but we also need physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists and a range of other people with the types of skill mixes we did not have in the past. I if I were Deputy Kelleher I would hang my head in shame. A Vision for Change was published in 2006, but the first serious move to implement it was in 2011.
Hear, hear.
