Liam Quaide
Cork East · Social Democrats · Ireland
“The Department is not funding the teams. That is the main issue. There is a stark double standard here. In mainstream CAMHS, multidisciplinary staffing is treated as basic good practice.”
“I already established, earlier this year, that the staffing levels of CAMHS-ID teams across the country are abysmal. These are children and teenagers with very complex needs. They experience major challenges across all aspects of their daily lives, including with communication and learning.”
“I ask about CAMHS-ID services, which are specialist teams for children and adolescents with a moderate to profound intellectual disability and coexisting mental health difficulties. According to the HSE, and by its own admission, no CAMHS-ID team nationally is staffed to the level recommended in its own model of care.”
“This is a particularly vulnerable cohort of young people, and the lack of investment is particularly stark. The Minister of State should not look at me with an expression of incredulity because we have seen this across primary care and in child, adult and older adult mental health services. This is all out in the public domain.”
“Their needs are often more complex than those of young people attending standard CAMHS. I am asking the Minister of State for a clear commitment. When will the Government move beyond small, incremental additions year by year and fully fund CAMHS-ID teams in every region? When will that happen?”
“Worried, anxious, fearful, angry, afraid, powerless, terrified, scared, overwhelmed, abandoned, hopeless. Words like these came up again and again in a survey the Social Democrats conducted in the run-up to this motion.”
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“Despite the sacrifices that these healthcare workers made on our behalf, they now face the loss of financial security at the end of June because this payment will be coming to an end. Many were infected in early January 2021, following the so-called meaningful Christmas, during which restrictions on movement were crudely lifted by the Government against the advice of public health experts. Will the Government provide these workers with an occupational injury scheme that will remove financial insecurity from the many burdens they carry?”
“A total of 159 healthcare workers with long Covid have been in receipt of payments over the past four to five years. Those payments are in recognition of the fact that they contracted the virus in high-risk settings such as hospital wards at the peak of the pandemic. They were often without adequate PPE. They have paid an enormous price in the form of symptoms such as debilitating post-exertional malaise. This can mean that a person might struggle to lift a cup of tea after what most of us would consider mild exertion or having to go back to bed with exhaustion after dropping their children to school. Their quality of life has been ruined by this condition, and they are not able to work.”
“We will get nowhere fast if it does not face this reality. Countries such as Austria have implemented housing policies that have been much smarter. Austria has been more versatile in how it has used public money, which has consequently been more effective. As a party, the Social Democrats have put forward pragmatic solutions to the housing disaster. The mental health fallout from the housing emergency will continue until the Government treats the issue as an emergency. We need to see much increased investment in the range of supports needed for homeless people, including multidisciplinary treatment for addiction and mental health difficulties, as recommended and highlighted by organisations such as Depaul and Simon.”
“Why is my mam upset?' Róisín hits on an important point, which is that children have great difficulty in emotionally assimilating to traumatic experiences. They often blame themselves for misfortunes they or their families are caught up in. Homelessness pervades the young person's experiences. Not only do they live with an internal lack of security, but they see worry, stress and unhappiness etched on their parents' faces day in, day out. Seeing a parent or parent figure distressed or at their wits' end much of the time is a particularly deep psychological wound that many of these children will carry with them into adulthood. The core response from the Government must be recognition, in the first instance, that housing policy over successive Dáil terms involving the same parties has failed.”
“That basic sense of security many of us take for granted, which stems from the fulfilment of the core need for a home, is damaged by homelessness and precarious living. There are also other psychological effects, as Róisín McDonnell, family services manager with Focus Ireland explains: All the normal childhood stuff goes out the window. Sleepovers are gone, friends coming to play, even family visiting may be gone. They will have to give up pets. They cannot celebrate birthdays. They have no space for their toys. Even the kids who seem to be coping at first, may become withdrawn or they may start acting out. They will never say 'I am angry because I am homeless' but they are a ball of confusion. 'Why has this happened to me?”
“Homelessness is well recognised as both a cause and a consequence of mental health difficulties. For the many thousands of children in this country who are caught up in the various forms of homelessness, whether that be conditions of extreme overcrowding, couch surfing, time spent in domestic violence shelters or emergency accommodation, mental health and developmental outcomes are likely to be very serious and far reaching. In Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the need for safe and stable accommodation is fundamental to the realisation of all other needs for the person in order to attain a decent quality of life. Therefore, a foundational aspect of mental health is being denied to many of our young people by Government policy.”
“Last week's "RTÉ Investigates" again highlighted the failure of successive Governments to enact safeguarding legislation for vulnerable adults. We were promised this 20 years ago after the Leas Cross scandal, in 2014 after Áras Attracta and more recently after the Grace report, the Brandon report and the Emily report. We urgently need to implement the recommendations of the Law Reform Commission report into safeguarding. The safeguarding Bill on the current legislative programme is too narrow in scope.”
“These natural flood defences or nature-based solutions are not silver bullets but they are very effective for some settlements, with Mogeely and Rathcormac appearing to be cases in point. Land use changes would involve interventions like paying farmers to pursue measures such as strategic planting or allowing their fields to soak up excess water. Why is the OPW not pursuing these measures, which generally do not require planning permission, with a sense of urgency in tandem with the more standard relief works? We need to be on a sustained emergency footing, with cross-departmental and cross-agency work that is properly led, resourced and co-ordinated. When it comes to the huge challenges we face with flood risk, anything less puts us on a hiding to nothing.”
“All the while, residents of Midleton, Killeagh, Castlemartyr, Ladysbridge, Rathcormac and Whitegate wait for the next major flood event. The indications from climate science are that it is a matter of when, not if. Other villages like Ballinacurra and Ballymacoda are also at risk. The scale of this challenge calls for a wider agency to co-ordinate all the entities involved in managing flood risk and responses to flood events. These include the OPW, local authorities, the Departments of environment and agriculture, Irish Water, Inland Fisheries Ireland and Coillte. If we had one overall agency with the power to lead, we would see better co-ordination, speed and efficiency in all aspects of flood management. Land use changes can also substantially improve flood resilience in some parts of the country.”
“Many applicants who managed to keep the floodwaters out of their property interior on 18 October because they happened to be at home or, in some cases, they erected makeshift barriers - they were very resourceful under severe pressure - have been denied this grant but they remain at risk alongside neighbours who were deemed eligible. Cork County Council has said it will reconsider these applications at a later stage but it has clearly been so poorly resourced to carry out the work required that we are nowhere near that stage. We have a large-scale flood relief scheme for Midleton very slowly moving towards the planning phase and other smaller-scale projects for villages in east Cork in various stages of limbo. Many properties that should have had floodgates installed long ago are still without them.”
“It is alarming to see this piecemeal approach to a challenge that requires a comprehensive response. How much effort has been put into recruiting experts from abroad? East Cork remains at huge risk without a dramatic increase in ambition and a sense of urgency. I spoke to residents of Mogeely and Castlemartyr who are in a state of disbelief and despair after receiving correspondence from the OPW telling them they must wait for so-called tranche 2 projects to be pursued to protect their villages. We are now fast approaching the two-year anniversary of October 2023. In east Cork, after long delays, we finally had a floodgate grant scheme approved last October. I very much welcomed that at the time. More than seven months later, many of the property owners have been assessed but have not yet had their gates installed.”
“In certain parts of County Cork, and nationally, we are dealing with a set of challenges to do with flood risks that are enormous in their scale and complexity. These challenges will test us more as time goes on and as the climate crisis deepens. Prior to our day of devastation in east Cork on 18 October 2023, and since then, the response by the State to the flood risk has been detached, disjointed and inadequate. Settlements throughout east Cork that were struck on that day remain as exposed as ever to severe flooding. In some cases, we have no real clarity on a timeframe for works. The OPW has subdivided its flood relief delivery programme into tranches. It says it is not possible to devise schemes concurrently due to "limited capacity" in the OPW, in local authorities and in the specialised consultancy market.”
“We appreciate the intensity of lobbying and the threats the Government is subject to, but we need to find our common humanity and assert our basic values in the face of a great evil being done to a trapped, terrorised and dispossessed people.”
“It has been deemed as such by a range of international experts and the aforementioned former Attorney General and Minister for Justice, Senator Michael McDowell. We know it was a charade to seek fresh legal advice in the lead-up the election on foot of enormous pressure from the public, and that pressure has risen again in the context of Gaza’s descent into hell. I put it to the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, that all will be forgiven if he does the right thing this time around and allows the Bill to progress, and for it to include services as well as goods. The Minister will outrage the Israeli Government either way so we may as well make this Bill substantive. If the Minister leads us down the garden path again, he will not be forgiven, either by the Irish people or by history. We understand the fears that come with passing this legislation.”
“In the words of Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, it would be a minimal act of concordance with international law. We know it would be momentous in being the first sanction of any kind imposed by a western country on trade with the illegal Israeli settlements. There is reason to believe it would set off a chain reaction of similar measures taken by other countries. By obstructing the passage of the occupied territories Bill into law, the Government has undermined our own democratic processes. This has happened at the same time as it warns, rightly, about Russian interference in European democracies. We all know this Bill is legally sound.”
“In an era when politics is so polarised and when the left side of that spectrum has been fragmented for years, this is an outstanding achievement in moral and political leadership. The momentum of this campaign will continue until the legislation is passed and it will lead to more comprehensive boycotts of Israel. We are six years on from the cynical obstruction of this Bill by Fine Gael through the money message technicality, to different stages of cynicism and dishonesty and political expediency since, which saw Fianna Fáil going from being champions of the Bill, introducing it to the Dáil in 2019, to turning its back on the Bill a year later under diplomatic pressure from America and Israel. The Bill would be modest in its impact.”
“I commend Sinn Féin on its motion this evening. I fully support it. I will take the opportunity to say a few words about the occupied territories Bill and the remarkable journey this legislation has been on since 2018. It simply will not go away and this is in large part due to the incredible determination and forbearance of Senator Frances Black and her colleague Conor O'Neill. Whether the occupied territories Bill remains obstructed by Government under the guise of legal complexities and constraints or whether the Government waters it down into some new pale iteration, Senator Black has managed to unify politicians from across the political spectrum, from Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett to Senator Michael McDowell, behind this campaign.”
“I thank the Minister for his encouraging response. I hope the Department will help the local community when it makes the application. On behalf of the community council in Ballynoe I have already been in touch with the HSE, which has indicated to me that it is its intention to sell the building. In line with the HSE property protocol and Department of public expenditure rules, it will be offered to a State stakeholder before being placed on the open market. The Ballynoe residents are asking for the opportunity to lease the building and repurpose it for community use but they will need particular support to restore the building since it has sat in a derelict state for so long. It will be asking for funding from the Department. I am very pleased to hear the Minister's words today. The community is eager to create an intergenerational space.”
“They want the opportunity to turn this property into a community hub, a remote working hub, a library or a space for people with additional needs. They are very open to various possibilities.”
“I thank the Minister for his response. I want to raise the particular example of Ballynoe in my constituency of Cork East where a former HSE dispensary building, a property owned by the State, has sat empty for several decades at least. Local residents believe it was last in use in the late 1970s or early 1980s but it has remained empty. It now sits boarded up with the gates locked and no access to the site. It is an eyesore for anyone passing it. Over the years the village of Ballynoe has seen its shops close. It has lost its butchers and its local pub and, in recent years, its only post office closed. A similar story has played out, as the Minister knows, in so many of our rural villages. Local residents have come together and set their sights on taking ownership of the derelict former HSE dispensary building.”
“In villages and towns throughout Ireland, there are vacant or derelict properties that represent a blight on their locality. They are like husks of wasted potential, preventing residents from having local community centres or some form of social or commercial hub. Bringing these vacant and derelict properties back into use would support the revitalisation of rural Ireland. Will the Minister outline the supports available from his Department to assist local communities in acquiring such buildings for community purposes?”
“I urge the Minister of State to engage with Hedgerows Ireland and BirdWatch Ireland to see how to better protect the natural heritage, which provides us with so much of our sense of place, well-being and connection with the very essence of life itself.”
“Bizarrely, when the Department is asked about staffing levels across different regions in parliamentary questions, the response is that the NPWS does not, for reasons of operational security, provide these details. If we were to follow this logic, information would not be provided on the number of gardaí stationed in a particular town or region. This country is a wild west when it comes to the protection of habitats. There are huge morale issues in the NPWS because it has been chronically under-resourced and hobbled by weak legislation in carrying out its work. The Wildlife Act is in desperate need of strengthening. Section 40(2)(b), in particular, allows for the destruction of vegetation "in the ordinary course of agriculture". That needs to change.”
“Those of us who care deeply about nature are often left in a state of helpless dismay as healthy trees whose existence may have spanned generations or long rows of hedgerows are destroyed by heavy machinery for agricultural or construction purposes or sometimes for mere aesthetic reasons. Hedgerows are routinely pulverised by flails, often in areas where no road safety risk is posed, at any time of the year without consequence. The health and safety rationale is too often a carte blanche to destroy everything in sight. There is no district conservation officer, regional manager or park ranger in the NPWS, which is a long-standing state of affairs.”
“Ministerial appointments by this Government have not generally filled me with joy but I was glad to hear the Minister of State would be taking up this role. It is clear he has a genuine love of nature and a wealth of knowledge to back it up that would put most of us to shame, so I welcome his appointment. Unfortunately, our trees and hedgerows have never been more in danger. The legal protections in place for habitats are wide open to abuse, due mainly to exemptions in the Wildlife Act, the cultural failure to take such crimes seriously and the ongoing lack of resourcing of the NPWS.”
“It is not clear how this emerged in the programme for Government despite all the concerns that have been raised about it internationally. Will the Minister tell us how this came about and commit to overturning this programme for Government commitment?”
“The scale of killing in the Nazi Holocaust was of a much higher magnitude than that of the Gaza genocide, but the contours of suffering and wanton cruelty and the clear intent to dehumanise and destroy a civilian population are increasingly similar, as all genocides share such patterns of inhumanity and destruction. The IHRA definition of antisemitism, which made its way into the programme for Government, forbids drawing such parallels and in so doing prohibits us from fully learning from history. The use of the IHRA definition to conflate criticism of Zionism with antisemitism will potentially harm our ability to fully oppose the horrific crimes being committed by Israel against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.”
“There are so many examples of this: the withholding of pain medication or anaesthetics from people who are in agony due to burns or wounds or from women giving birth and undergoing caesarean sections; people with amputated limbs being denied crutches and wheelchairs; the targeted bombing of sanitation and sewage facilities to inflict maximum misery on survivors; and the countless videos posted by Israeli military personnel mocking victims of their crimes. The word "evil" should be sparingly used but if this is not evil, what is?”
“Levi described this deprivation as "a trauma to which our civilization does not prepare us, a profound wound inflicted on human dignity, an obscene and ominous attack; but also the sign of a deliberate and gratuitous malignancy." The genocide that is being perpetrated by Israel today in Gaza has been distinguished by repeated and varied patterns of useless violence, symbolised for all of us by the thousands of aid trucks lined up at border crossings indefinitely as the population starves, and as what is left of society in Gaza moves closer to a state of anarchy while people get increasingly desperate and driven to the limits of despair.”
“In his magisterial meditation on the Holocaust, The Drowned and the Saved , Italian survivor Primo Levi detailed in a chapter “Useless Violence” some of the cruelties and deprivations to which the Nazis subjected the Jewish community of Europe prior to their murder in concentration camps. The term “useless violence” reflected the lack of any rationale, even in the twisted logic of war, for this treatment. The point was to inflict suffering for its own sake. Levi gave the example of there being no facility for toileting on box cars that were packed with people destined for concentration camps. The severely ill, the elderly, the pregnant and children were forced to urinate and defecate in view of others on torturous journeys lasting days.”
“It is very welcome to have this discussion today on an area that is of such fundamental importance to our values as a society, to human rights and to the essence of what we mean by "community". This is a subject that touches the lives of all families in the State. How we support our disabled citizens, our carers and our elders to enjoy life to their fullest will define - more than anything - who we are as a society.”
“Deering has appealed to the current Government to include improved funding for the HSE to relocate these young adults. He said he was "deeply unhappy" with the funding allocated in budget 2025, and he warned that "a huge amount of work" in implementing the recommendations of the Wasted Lives report may have to stop as a result. People with acquired brain injury and intellectual disabilities should be able to avail of long-term specialised residential care in the community where that is needed. They should be able to live somewhere they can call home, where they can feel safe, form healthy relationships and pursue meaningful goals. They should be supported to fully take part in their local community.”
“Its residential services have had a transformative effect on the lives of people who would otherwise have ended up in nursing homes or living precariously in the community. Unfortunately, one of the despairing aspects of our work involved telling so many people who had been referred to the Peter Bradley Foundation that they were being put on a waiting list for residential services that were not available because there was a limited spread of services throughout the country, and it remains so. In May 2024, there were in excess of 1,200 people with disabilities living in nursing homes. The ombudsman, Ger Deering, has warned that Ireland will look back with regret at how we treated these citizens. His office authored a report, Wasted Lives, on their plight. Mr.”
“As of the end of 2024, 6,000 people had been approved for a home care package, but were not receiving one as resources were not available. Crucially, and this is a real human rights issue that is very close to my heart, we need to end the scandal of young adults with brain injury and intellectual disability stranded in nursing homes because community residential services are not available to them. This is a desperately sad situation, and another example of how much of a distance is opening up between our economic prosperity on the one hand, and the vindication of our disabled citizens' basic rights on the other. I previously spoke in this Chamber about my work in the Peter Bradley Foundation, now known as Acquired Brain Injury Ireland, in Glenageary and Dún Laoghaire many years ago.”
“There has been a consistent trend in the policies of successive Governments toward privatisation of both home care and nursing home care. Private companies account for approximately of 80% of all nursing homes, and provide 60% of all home care hours. The outsourcing of these core services to commercial for-profit entities results in poor value for money, low pay and precarious work conditions for the people who staff them. That does not bode well for the provision of care for our older citizens. The Government needs to act on the promises of Sláintecare and reverse the increasing privatisation of health and social care. At any one time, there are approximately 700 people in hospitals throughout the country waiting to be discharged, but who are unable to return home as there is no home care support available.”
“I welcome the emphasis placed by the Minister of State, Deputy Kieran O'Donnell, at the outset of his tenure on the importance of facilitating older adults to live at home for as long as possible, and his commitment to a fair deal for home care. However, it is important that we see a clear timeline soon on the creation of this scheme. Older people have the capacity to live full, authentic lives, defined by connection, a sense of humour, community, purpose, creativity and intimacy, in stages of life where physical and cognitive decline are also taking place. There is a real human rights issue with the current system of mostly private nursing homes, many of which provide for basic care needs at huge financial expense but are not tuned in to the wider needs of the whole person.”
“By abolishing the means test, the Government could provide all carers with a guaranteed minimum income, thereby ensuring that they can continue their work without facing this level of financial distress. The means test undermines the principle of equality by treating carers as though their contributions are secondary to the economy. Care work should be properly valued, not means tested. Everyone who provides care should be treated with dignity and respect, not subjected to financial hardship. Nursing home care should be a last resort for older adults whose physical and cognitive needs are reaching a point where they can no longer live at home.”
“The means test fails to reflect the true financial needs of carers, particularly when they are forced to reduce their working hours or leave employment entirely for the care of a loved one. Many carers who are providing essential care are left without the financial means to support themselves, even though they play a vital role in the healthcare system and make a huge contribution to our society. Carers, particularly those in low-paid or part-time jobs, often live on the edge of poverty as a result of this. The current system does not take into account the increased costs that carers face, such as medical expenses, mobility aids and additional transport costs, all of which further aggravate their financial hardship.”
“The carer's allowance is designed to support people who give up their own time and income to provide unpaid care for a loved one. This care work is essential to the health and well-being of some of the most vulnerable people in our society. However, the current means test penalises low-income carers, often pushing them deeper into financial insecurity, rather than acknowledging their commitment, their hard work and the burden they are actually lifting from the State. The means test for carer's allowance currently takes into account both the income and savings of the carer and his or her partner. This system, although initially intended to target support to those most in need, has proven to be a further financial and psychological burden for many carers who fall just outside the eligibility threshold.”
“I commend the Independent Technical Group on its motion before the House today. I welcome the discussion of issues that are of such fundamental importance in the pursuit of a fair and inclusive society, and in how we value or fail to value the lives of our disabled citizens and our elders and, essentially, who we are as a society and as a republic. In this context, the means test for the carer's allowance, which is an essential support for those providing care to relatives, usually with chronic illness or disabilities, is unjust and should be abolished. Under intense pressure leading up to the election, abolition of the means test was included in the programme for Government, but we have yet to see clear movement on this.”
“Above all else, we need to see much greater investment by the Government in these essential services for our disabled citizens. We should not have to rely on the remarkable courage and determination of Cara Darmody to see that commitment made.”
“It has been roundly criticised by all the main unions as putting a stranglehold on service development. The HSE is increasingly referring assessments of need to private clinicians at an average cost of €3,300 per assessment. What we really need to see is proper workforce planning and a comprehensive recruitment drive to meet the level of need at all stages of service provision. This will provide continuity of care for service users, more integrated services and better morale among existing staff. The crises in disability services and additional needs education provision are resolvable through reform that is driven by meaningful and sustained engagement with the families and the front-line staff at the epicentre of the crisis.”
“It fails to mention in its briefings and parliamentary question responses that the main difficulty has been its own failure to pursue recruitment for necessary posts over many years and over-reliance on unqualified assistant psychologists. All of this results from Government policy, including the pay and numbers strategy. Behind all these waiting lists are families languishing through what feels for them like one purgatory after another, waiting and waiting for an assessment before then being on further waiting lists for support, with no end in sight. The main ongoing roadblock to staffing primary care services is the Government's pay and numbers strategy, which in some cases is proving to be almost as restrictive as the official recruitment embargo that preceded it.”
“Therefore, the initial service statement of the HSE from January has been overturned by other HSE professionals and the boy has not been seen by any of the services yet. This is an example of what is called “defensive practice” among clinicians, whereby services that are overstretched bat referrals back in an attempt to sustain a manageable waiting list. For families impacted by these decisions, it is an extremely frustrating experience to be passed from one service to the next. In that context, it is easy to see how families lose faith in the HSE and feel private clinicians are their only option. How many families can afford to even consider a private clinician? The HSE cites "recruitment difficulties" as the main source of the crisis in primary care, and in Cork–Kerry it has even created a new layer of management to address this.”
“That was after my colleague Holly Cairns highlighted last year that there were 5,000 children on the list. However, we did not see the recruitment drive that was necessary to address this in the meantime. In January, one Cork East constituent was given an estimated waiting time of five years and nine months for primary care psychology for her son, who had recently received a diagnosis of autism following an assessment of need. The family has since been told – in recent weeks – that following a file review in primary care, their son should now actually be seen by the CDNT. This will involve being diverted onto another set of waiting lists for therapies, which may not materialise for years or may never materialise.”
“After completing an assessment of need, families often face a further abyss of prolonged waiting to access therapies and are forced to seek these privately, if they can afford to. What we therefore need is wholesale investment across services. The purpose of an assessment of need is, after all, to access intervention. Children with mild to moderate developmental issues or disabilities may be referred to primary care services, while children with more complex difficulties come under the remit of children's disability network teams. We see the consequences of the failure to plan most dramatically in the south-west regional health area, Cork-Kerry, where the waiting list for primary care psychology services exceeded 6,000 earlier this year.”
“In reality, more than 90% of assessments of need are completed outside the legally agreed timeline. A response to a parliamentary question of mine in March showed that the HSE spent €7.9 million between April 2021 and February 2025 defending legal cases against families trying to access an assessment of need. This legal cost equates to 180 years' worth of salary for a newly qualified occupational therapist. For much of that almost-four-year period, the HSE was implementing a recruitment embargo or similar recruitment restrictions, thereby stymieing its own capacity to carry out assessments of need, not to mention much essential clinical work after an assessment is completed. This is a tragic farce among so many other political failings that are having an enormous impact on the lives of children with disabilities.”
“I pay tribute to Cara Darmody and her dad, Mark. I acknowledge the leadership Cara has shown in bringing us all here this evening with this collective motion. Clinical services and educational supports for children with additional needs and disabilities are in a dire state, directly resulting from years of poor planning and under-resourcing. All of this did not come about by chance. These are the results of poor political decision-making over many years. They can be resolved by more progressive political decision-making. The chronic neglect of disability services in special education by successive Governments has left families at the mercy of a disjointed patchwork of a support system for their children. The Disability Act 2005 provided children with a legal right to an assessment of need within six months of being applied for.”
“Change in disability services and resolving the AON crisis can happen but not by robbing Peter to pay Paul or expecting services to function without adequate workforce planning or staffing.”
“However, the Government can take one straightforward and basic step now and that is to overturn the recruitment restrictions imposed on primary care services by the pay and numbers strategy, commence a comprehensive recruitment drive and provide the staffing to carry out assessment and intervention for young people with mild to moderate difficulties. It will not solve everything but it could be transformative. Many families are getting stuck in the AON pathway because primary care is not available to them. They believe the only way they can access support is through the AON process. It is vital that the Minister, Deputy Foley, and her colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Michael Moynihan, engage with CDNT ground-level staff who have left those services to establish what exactly is causing the retention crisis in CDNTs.”