Mental Health Reform welcomes allocation of additional €143.5M for mental health services
Mental Health Reform welcomes the allocation of an additional €143.5M for mental health services in Budget 2025. This investment represents the largest ever single-year commitment to funding for mental health services in the history of the state.
The funding includes €127.5M to maintain existing levels of service and €16M for new developments to support the implementation of Ireland’s national mental health policy, Sharing the Vision and Connecting for Life, Ireland’s national suicide prevention strategy.
Philip Watt, Interim CEO, Mental Health Reform said: “With the Government delivering their final budget ahead of the General Election, the unprecedented additional €143.5M in funding for mental health services is extremely timely and welcome.
Despite this, funding for mental health still only represents 5.8% of the total health budget. Once again, we urge the Government to meet its commitment in Sláintecare to increase mental health funding to 10% of the health budget.
In our Pre-Budget Submission, Mental Health Reform advocated for an additional €80M in funding for the development of new services to address unmet need. We note that only €16M was provided for new developments in Budget 2025, this is a missed opportunity
We welcome the Government’s commitment to investing in the HSE’s national clinical programmes in mental health. The €5.7M in additional funding is the most substantial investment to date in these specialist services and includes: four adult ADHD teams, two Eating Disorder teams, two Early Intervention in Psychosis teams, and two Dual Diagnosis teams.
We also welcome funding announced for additional staff within the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS). The extra staff across CAMHS will help to provide services across community teams, the emergency department liaison service and the CAMHS Hubs. While this development is significant, the lack of additional investment in early intervention and prevention programmes in youth mental health needs to be prioritised.
We welcome that suicide prevention and mental health within the Traveller Community has received additional funding which will include counselling, and bereavement support programmes. We also welcome the additional €2M in funding for Counselling in Primary Care (CIPC) with a focus on men’s mental health.
Mental Health Reform would like to acknowledge the dedication and commitment of Minister of State for Mental Health and Older People, Mary Butler and we look forward to hearing the details of the allocation for mental health services in due course, including a breakdown of the €127.5M to maintain existing levels of service.”
