THE CHILDREN’S MENTAL health service is “largely non-existent” and discrimination against autistic children and children with disabilities is rife, an Oireachtas committee has heard.

Parents representing families who have sought support for their children have criticised “lack of joined up thinking” within both CAMHS and the HSE, which has forced many to pay for private mental healthcare, while others suffer for years for lack of intervention.

A review into the service, published in July 2023, found that the UN Rights of the Child may have been breached for children with mental illness in Ireland, due to long waiting lists, “lost” cases, lack of emergency and out-of-hours services, and more. 

Issues within CAMHS have been well-documented. A part of the review that focused on the experiences of people using the service in the northwest reported that a “depressed, anxious and suicidal” child had to wait a year for a mental health appointment.

Another parent in the same area said that when she asked a question about her child’s future she was told by a clinician that it was “above my pay grade” and that other inappropriate comments were made to her.

Addressing the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health, campaign group Families for Reform of CAMHS, which was set up last summer, made two main demands. 

They asked that the government take on board and implement the mental health commission’s 49 recommendations to reform CAMHS. These include the regulation of the service.

Speaking to the Committee, Social Democrats TD Róisín Shorthall said this step was particularly essential as “we cannot depend either on the HSE or the Department to be upfront”.

The group also called for an end to discrimination against autistic children and children with intellectual disabilities in the service.

Some 85% of its members that have an autistic child said that having a diagnosis of autism negatively impacted the support they received.

Since September 2022, children with intellectual disabilities are no longer accepted by CAMHS but are to be seen by the specialist service known as CAMHS-ID. However, this service “largely doesn’t exist”, the group says, as only about a third of the 16 teams required across the country have been established.

“Members mentioned that anxiety or depression was just dismissed as being part of autism rather than acknowledging and offering support for the actual mental health issues being experienced,” representative Hannah Ní Ghiolla Mhairtín said.

“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, that children nationwide are being failed and our families left alone without adequate support at a time when we need it most.”

Ní Ghiolla Mhairtín  said that even when families are “in the door”, many challenges remain.

“Therapeutic supports are extremely hard to access and children are often only offered medication,” she said.

“We have families who were told that 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.”

Some 12% of the group’s members have a care plan and key worker for their child. More than a third would like to make a complaint but have chosen not to “because they are worried about how it would impact their child’s care”. 

There are currently around 4,400 children awaiting first-time CAMHS appointments.

“And it is hard to sum up the feelings you experience as your child’s mental health is deteriorating and you are unsure whether support will come too late,” Ní Ghiolla Mhairtín said.

“The government and the HSE have acknowledged service deficits and yet we have seen no real reform nor no real commitment to bring about change.

“And children continue to suffer as a result.”

Cathaoirleach Sean Crowe TD described the figures as “frightening” and “scandalous”, and called for cross-party support to solve the problems.

Green Party TD Neasa Hourigan highlighted that yesterday the list of bills that are to be prioritised this year was published by the government.

“I was really surprised to see that the reform of the Mental Health Act 2001 wasn’t one,” she said, considering it completed pre-legislative scrutiny in May 2022.

“Much of our legislation and particularly that piece of legislation doesn’t vindicate the rights of persons with disabilities or who might be neurodivergent, and it certainly doesn’t bring us into line with the UNCRPD (United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities).”