Child mental health plan panned

THE response of the Irish Government to a UN committee on what it plans to do to improve mental health services for children has been branded as ‘disappointing’.

Groups representing children and mental health advocates gathered at the Office of the Children’s Ombudsman yesterday to watch a live-screening of Minister for Children Roderic O’Gorman address a UN committee in Geneva.

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child asked questions of Mr O’Gorman and officials over two days about issues that affect Irish children, including the findings of an interim report into the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS).

The Mental Health Commission’s report found a disjointed service, with acceptance rates of referrals to acute mental health services varying between 38% and 81%.

It also found that some teams were not monitoring children taking antipsychotics, that most services had no IT system to manage appointments, and there was no ringfenced funding for child mental health services.

Addressing a question from the committee about whether admissions of children to adult mental health units would be reduced to zero, an Irish official said this is only ever ‘a last resort’.

Ber Grogan, of the Mental Health Reform umbrella group, said: ‘The biggest takeaway is that we’re disappointed with the lack of ambition around the Government’s plans, particularly when we’re talking about still admitting children to adult mental health units.’

Nuala Ward, director of investigations for the Ombudsman for Children’s Office, said: ‘The only area we were slightly disappointed is that we would have expected a more robust response to the mental health issue in light of the report this week, we would have expected that – that’s where we would have felt that the State did fall down in light of everything has happened.’