Common complaint on CAMHS is silence, says local TD

In recent months Ireland’s Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) have been subjected to intense scrutiny following the release of a shocking report on activities in north Kerry.

In Longford Westmeath, 55 children are waiting for appointments. Funding and staffing are among the factors driving long wait times.

Two of the three approved senior clinical psychologist positions for Longford Westmeath are filled, according to the HSE, who are currently in discussion on filling the other one. It won’t be officially filled until contracts are signed.

In response to a query to the HSE, they stated: “Recruitment efforts have been ongoing during this period. The position was offered last year, however there was no uptake.

“The HSE remains committed to filling the post as soon as possible to support the delivery of CAMHS services.

Following the establishment of a new recruitment panel, their efforts were successful.

Longford Westmeath TD Sorca Clarke, Sinn Féin spokesperson for mental health, is in constant contact with families of children waiting for appointments. Earlier this year she put forward a parliamentary question on the subject.

“This is exactly what happens,” she said. “You have multidisciplinary teams, and where multidisciplinary teams aren’t staffed to the level that they need to be, that’s when the gaps start to appear.

“So if somebody is referred in, there’s a backlog, but they can’t go anywhere because the post that they need to see is vacant, so they get stuck.

“They get stuck in the flow almost, and if there’s two people in that post, the others don’t have any additional capacity to take on what should have been the third person’s role.”

Deputy Clarke explained that a common complaint from parents is the silence: “It’s regular that parents are in contact about an appointment, refusals from CAMHS and waiting lists and waiting times. One of the biggest issues they face is the child is accepted to CAMHS, and then there’s nothing.

“Communication is very poor,” she said.

The long wait times affect the patient, their families and other loved ones.

Deputy Clarke added: “There’s a whole person impacted with mental health, you can’t have good health without having good mental health. And then there’s the impact on the immediate family around them.

“There are the parents who are doing their best for their child but they’re not the professional in the room.

“The ripple effect of a young person not getting the treatment they need is wider than the detrimental impact on the young person themselves.”

Louis Costelloe, who works with Spun Out (described on its website as a 'youth information and support platform') has been working with Deputy Clarke. He told the Westmeath Examiner that in 2024 he was left waiting seven months for a CAMHS appointment. As the wait went on, his mental health declined further and he attempted to take his own life.

Fortunately Louis is still here today, and uses his experience to advocate for young people in CAMHS.

He also lobbies the government to take steps toward improving the service, particularly on the subject of funding.

“Looking into the funding of it was the most eye opening thing I’ve experienced throughout this whole thing.

“It was in June of last year, I was preparing to go up to the Dáil to lobby for funding for CAMHS. That was the year of the famous phone pouches for schools.

“That year the government gave €9 million for phone pouches that are only now being used. That same year, they gave CAMHS €3 million to hire new staff, and that €3 million is broken up into centres all over the country.

“I broke it down then by centre and it was €36,000 per centre. The starting salary for a CAMHS professional is €40,000.

“Even just going through that and going through the numbers really does open your eyes and proves the funding isn’t there.

“The awareness isn’t there and to be honest, the caring isn’t there.”

The wait isn’t simply an inconvenience, the children referred to CAMHS are living with some of the most extreme cases of mental illness. For them and their families, it’s life and death.

A midlands mother who went to Deputy Clarke for help has spoken to the Examiner about her son’s treatment and experience with the CAMHS. Unlike Louis, Her son received an appointment quite quickly.

“We were only two weeks waiting on an appointment. We were blessed, or so we felt at the time.”

The teenager was diagnosed with Anorexia Nervosa, a serious eating disorder that leads to an intense fear of gaining weight. He was referred to Cherry Orchard. “He had lost 30% of his body fat in the space of two months. It was quite critical, that’s why he got his appointment so quickly.”

Having been referred in May of 2024, his first appointment was a meeting with a psychiatrist, a therapist and a dietician. He and his parents also attended weekly family therapy.

“He would spend 40 minutes with the psychiatrist and then we would go in with him and review the situation, but he wasn’t engaging. He believed that he was leading a healthy life and they were trying to make him fat.

“This went on until December, we went every single week and he didn’t seem to be getting anywhere with them.

“We would ask, because he has really bad anxiety, I would ask if he should be hospitalised and they said no.

“He would come out of the sessions and say he was trying to explain what was going on in his head. But they kept shutting him down saying that they were an eating disorder clinic and they weren’t dealing with that.”

Frustration was evident in the mother’s voice, growing as she explains that she had asked why they weren’t listening to what he was feeling.

“I was shut down and told no.”

In January 2025, the boy asked to be discharged. “He said that all they were doing was talking about food, food, food, and he had other things that he needed to talk about and they wouldn’t listen.

“In my opinion, they just wanted to get rid of him because he was coming up to 18 and he was going to age out.”

There was a five-year wait for the adult mental health services when her son aged out of CAMHS.

“In October, he asked to see the GP because he wasn’t feeling well and the GP sent him straight to the emergency department because he was having suicidal thoughts.”

The ED decided he wouldn’t be admitted and he was referred to local mental health services. The young man then began attending group therapy, which was helpful, but the programme ended two weeks after he joined and never reconvened.

A week before this conversation, the young man was found wandering by a neighbour having taken something. “It gave him quite a fright.”

He has now agreed to go into treatment at a private hospital.

As of the end of March this year, 259 children and teens were waiting for appointments in Westmeath, Longford, Laois and Offaly.