Minister for Mental Health and Older People announces allocation of additional €10 million to enhance mental health services

• Government investment in mental health services now is over €1.3 billion, an increase of over €300 million since 2020
• new and recurring funding will enhance the delivery of mental health services targeting the areas of child and youth mental health, online safety, recovery services, and the National Clinical Programmes in mental health
• funding will be assigned on a geographical spread and focus on improving access to services, better integration between services and embedding innovative service models

Minister for Mental Health and Older People Mary Butler today announced the allocation of an additional €10 million in funding for mental health services secured through the Revised Estimates process.

The focus of this new 2024 investment funding is in child and youth mental health including Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) and online safety for children.

It will specifically support new recruitment into CAMHS services and provide funding for other services for children and young people, with a focus on prevention and early intervention mental health supports. This includes additional posts to expand CAMHS Hubs to provide enhanced intensive brief mental health interventions to young people in times of acute crisis, and extra CAMHS staff at Emergency Departments to assist young people who have presented there to access services. There will also be additional recruitment of staff to further expand specialist mental health services for young people in areas such as ADHD, eating disorders and early intervention in psychosis.

The additional €10 million allocation announced by Minister Butler today will see the recruitment of further posts across mental health services and comes in addition to Budget 2024 funding for 68 posts for CAMHS and child and youth mental health. Taken together, these 130 new posts for 2024 will strengthen CAMHS teams nationwide, enhance CAMHS Hub teams and develop key clinical care programmes such as early intervention in psychosis, eating disorders, ADHD, and dual diagnosis.

Some key measures that will be advanced through the funding include:

• a new eating disorder team for CHO7 (covering Kildare/West Wicklow, Dublin West, Dublin South City, Dublin South West)
• new annual funding for the Seeking Safety Ireland Programme, which supports women experiencing the dual diagnosis of mental health difficulties and addiction, in addition to domestic and sexual gender-based violence and associated issues. This Programme is receiving recurring funding for the first time, following a successful pilot project
• additional supports for Traveller mental health - particularly for young Travellers - to access counselling, psychotherapy, and related youth work supports
• additional Suicide Crisis Assessment Nurses (SCAN) for CAMHS. SCAN Nurses work with GPs to urgently assess people experiencing a suicidal crisis and identify the key supports they need, working with the person and their family
• additional funding to Jigsaw for early intervention youth mental health services for 12-25 year olds
• posts to reduce the number those waiting for over 12 months for CAMHS services, through the provision of additional ADHD supports. Many young people on CAMHS wait lists are awaiting an assessment for suspected ADHD, and this resource will expedite assessments and access to appropriate interventions
• two pilot sites (CHO2 and CHO9) to trial a new approach to referrals into children’s services including mental health services, primary care and disability services, where referrals will be processed by a single office covering all services, rather than individual referrals being made to each service. Known as the ‘No Wrong Door’ approach, it will help avoid children having multiple referrals and better guide parents to the most appropriate service for their child

Minister Butler is also prioritising youth mental health and online safety, with dedicated funding of €1 million for online safety to support the digital literacy and protection of young people online. This includes a new national campaign on online safety and the development of digital resources for parents and young people to increase understanding of online harms and how young people can be better protected.

Minister Butler said:

Minister Butler continued:

The focus of the investment being announced today is on supporting people to avail of a range of supports and services as close to home as possible, at the level of complexity that corresponds best to their needs and circumstances, across a continuum of mental health services. This means accessing the mental health supports that they need, in the community in the first instance, at the level most appropriate to their needs. This can range from counselling and talk therapies through to support from their community mental health team, or access to more specialist services, up to and including inpatient and residential supports.

New measures include:

• CAMHS Hubs: Additional staff for CAMHS Hubs to further roll-out this innovative service which provides an alternative to hospital admission. CAMHS Hubs provide enhanced intensive brief mental health interventions to young people in times of acute crisis
• CAMHS Emergency Department Posts: Additional staff to assist young people who have presented to Emergency Departments with onward access to appropriate services, including to community CAMHS teams
• Single Point of Access/’No Wrong Door’: Establishment of two test sites for the new single point of access to children’s services, in CHO2 and CHO9, where a single office takes referrals for primary care, mental health, and disability services. These sites will test a single referral pathway to these services for children and young people aged 0-25
• Digital Investment: A full electronic health record for all CAMHS teams nationally, a critical piece of infrastructure to enable CAMHS teams to work more efficiently and effectively
• enhancement of key clinical mental health services, including early intervention in psychosis, eating disorders, dual diagnosis, and ADHD services
• dedicated funding for online safety to support the digital literacy and protection of young people online, including a campaign for online safety, Digital Resources, and targeted awareness
• new funding for NGOs including to Seeking Safety Ireland, to support the roll-out of the Seeking Safety Programme to women in Ireland who were experiencing the dual diagnosis of mental health difficulties and addiction, in addition to domestic and sexual gender-based violence and associated issue; and for Jigsaw and Foróige to deliver early intervention mental health supports for children and young people