Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 18 June 2025
177. Deputy Sorca Clarke asked the Minister for Health the specific targets, timelines, and accountability mechanisms in place to ensure that the commitments made in the Youth Mental Health Action Plan and related strategies result in measurable improvements in access and quality of mental health care for children and adolescents. [33175/25]
View answerSharing the Vision: A Mental Health Policy for Everyone (www.hse.ie/eng/about/who/mentalhealth/sharing-the-vision/) sets out an ambitious programme for the continued improvement of Irish mental health services. Adopted by the Irish Government in 2020, Sharing the Vision is Ireland’s ten-year mental health policy to enhance the provision of services and supports across a broad continuum - from the promotion of positive mental health to specialist mental health service delivery. The policy contains one-hundred recommendations for the development of Irish mental health services to be delivered over a ten-year period from 2020 to 2030.
The National Implementation and Monitoring Committee (NIMC) is collectively responsible for driving and overseeing the long-term implementation of the national mental health policy Sharing the Vision. The NIMC comprises a Steering Committee, chaired by Ms. Catherine Brogan, the HSE Implementation Group, the Reference Group, and associated Specialist Groups.
When first published, the policy assigned a short-, medium- and long-term timeline to each recommendation, against which progress has been monitored and reported. Since these timelines were identified and building on the learning over the course of the first plan, the programme has gained a better understanding of the required change and level of complexity associated with individual recommendations.
To provide clarity as to what is to be delivered within the 2025 - 2027 Implementation Plan (www.hse.ie/eng/about/who/mentalhealth/sharing-the-vision/), recommendations were therefore assigned one of the following timelines:
• ‘Within current implementation plan,’ which indicates that the recommendation is expected to transition to business as usual in this implementation phase.
• ‘Within current and next implementation plan,’ which indicates work on this recommendation will be ongoing throughout the current implementation phase with an expectation that it will transition to business as usual by the end of the next plan.
Building on this approach and the milestones set out in the new implementation plan, a status has been reported for individual policy recommendations. As of Quarter 1, 2025, 56 recommendations are reported as ‘On-track’, 21 are experiencing ‘Minor Delivery Issues’, whereas 4 are reported as having ‘Major Delivery Issues’. 20 recommendations have to date been approved as ‘Complete’ and transitioned to business as usual.
Through the development of the 2025 – 2027 Implementation Plan, three transformational programmes were also prioritised, namely i) the development of an overarching operating framework for mental health, ii) the design of an operating guideline for general adult community mental health services and iii) delivery of the Child and Youth Mental Health Office Action Plan 2024-2027 (https://about.hse.ie/news/hse-publishes-action-plan-for-the-reform-of-child-and-youth-mental-health-services-in-ireland/).
The Child and Youth Mental Health Office Action Plan 2024 - 2027 (https://about.hse.ie/news/hse-publishes-action-plan-for-the-reform-of-child-and-youth-mental-health-services-in-ireland/) is a three-year action plan which was launched on 17/2/2025 by the HSE’s Child and Youth Mental Health Office, and it sets out a roadmap to ensure all children and families have equitable and timely access to high-quality mental health services. The Plan sets out 16 key actions for comprehensive reform of child and youth mental health services in Ireland. In doing so, the action plan pulls together existing improvement initiatives, including recommendations arising from the national audits of adherence to the CAMHS Operational Guideline (2019) and prescribing practice, the Youth Mental Health Specialist Group and the Mental Health Commission’s review of CAMHS.
I was instrumental in establishing the new Child and Youth Mental Health Office in the HSE in 2023 to improve all aspects of mental health care in line with Sharing the Vision and Connecting for Life. I also consulted closely with the HSE on developing the new Action Plan, including ensuring that the commitments reflected in the Plan are realised. I will continue to closely liaise with the HSE on progressing implementation of the Plan, and I have asked the Health Service Executive to respond directly to the Deputy on the detailed operational issues raised by her.
