Today, 12th October 2021, Mental Health Reform welcome the allocation of an additional €24M to mental health for the development of new services and €13M to support the provision of existing levels of service announced in Budget 2022.
Fiona Coyle, CEO said:
“COVID-19 has adversely affected the physical and mental well-being of many people in Ireland. The Government’s commitment of €37M in Budget 2022 recognises the need to address the ongoing mental health impact of the pandemic. While the investment falls short of the €85M we believe will be needed in 2022, we recognise that it is a positive step towards improving access to mental health services, in line with our new national mental health policy Sharing the Vision.
We welcome the announcement of new development funding which will go some way in addressing staff shortages and provide much needed resources for our national clinical programmes. The development of two new Child and Adolescent Mental Health Hubs is also an important measure that will help to improve mental health outcomes for children and young people.
We also warmly welcome the €10M of additional investment in mental health services in 2021. This funding is surplus to the announcements in Budget 2022 and to the additional €10M funding announced in February 2021 to address the mental health impacts of COVID-19.
While there have been some positive developments in Budget 2022, further investment will be needed to ensure that mental health services can meet the growing demand for support as we emerge from the pandemic.
We 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 detail of the allocation for mental health services in due course.”
