Mental health fund could get 'hived off' for other sectors

FUNDING OF €35 million for mental health services could be “hived off” by the HSE for other sectors unless a director for the area is appointed immediately, the Dáil has been warned.

Fine Gael backbencher Dan Neville said Ireland had one of the fastest growing rates of suicide in the world, and was currently the fourth highest. It was very important to prioritise suicide prevention within mental health services funding, and €3 million to €4 million of that should be allocated to the National Office for Suicide Prevention.

However, he warned that if a director of mental health services was not immediately appointed, management of the “promised €35 million will again be left to the health services, and I am not confidence it will be used for its intended purpose”.

The Limerick TD was speaking during a Dáil debate on the 2012 health service plan.

He highlighted experience of funding with €17 million of a €25 million allocation being spent on mental health in 2006, with the rest “hived off” for other areas.

In 2007, just €10 million was used and the rest addressed “deficits elsewhere”.

He called for the HSE to “immediately produce a detailed plan for the spending of the €35 million”, which would be debated in the Dáil.

He said there should be a single HSE director in charge of this €35 million, and that a director should progressively move to controlling the full mental health budget, currently €105 million.

Fianna Fáil TD Dara Calleary highlighted major difficulties with medical card applications. He had “exchanged 20 pieces of correspondence” with the centralised unit about an elderly constituent of his who, through diabetes, was forced to have a leg amputated.

The Mayo TD said that on five occasions “his family and ourselves submitted information that had been previously submitted and then once again requested”, and they still could not sort out a medical card for him.

Minister of State for primary care Róisín Shortall acknowledged the problem, and said that from this month there would be “self-assessment for the renewal of medical cards and this will assist the process greatly”. There would be spot checking to ensure accountability.

She said the development of primary care services was an essential component of reform, and in a developed system up to 95 per cent of people’s day-to-day health and social care needs would be met in the primary care setting, “which is what we want to do”.

Sinn Féin TD Jonathan O’Brien said HSE South would lose 170,000 home-help hours in the health service plan yet the Government continued “to claim budgetary cuts will not impact on front-line services”.

“I do not know how anybody could try to justify that argument.”