Social Democrats TD Liam Quaide has accused the HSE of attempting to conceal the scale of the crisis in primary care psychology services.<\/p>\n
Deputy Quaide, who is the party\u2019s spokesperson on mental health and disability, said:<\/p>\n
\u201cI am deeply frustrated with the unanswered or partly answered parliamentary questions on this matter. The responses I received\u00a0indicate\u00a0a clear pattern of waiting list figures being either withheld or obscured by the HSE.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn April, I submitted questions on primary care psychology services to all the Regional Health Areas, seeking a breakdown of waiting times in categories of years and months.<\/p>\n
“Eleven weeks later, I\u00a0have yet to receive any response from the Dublin and North East Regional Health Area and\u00a0Dublin and Midlands Regional Health Area. Anecdotally, I understand that the waiting lists in these areas could be well in excess of five years.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have also asked the HSE for a composite response to questions on primary care waiting lists nationally. To date, however, the Primary Care Access and Integration Office has declined to offer a more refined breakdown than the 52-plus weeks for young people waiting more than a year, and have failed to share the longest wait times for each Regional Health Area.<\/p>\n
\u201cPrimary care services have been neglected for years by successive governments. They are now deep in crisis in most parts of the country, with waiting lists out of control and staff morale on the floor.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is also getting more difficult for psychology managers to fill the paltry number of posts they are allowed to advertise because candidates would be taking up a role in a service that has been hollowed out.<\/p>\n
\u201cLong before the current recruitment restrictions and embargo, primary care services had large volumes of referrals redirected to them from disability services. This all happened under the rollout of \u2018Progressing Disabilities\u2019, with no commensurate increase in staffing levels.<\/p>\n
\u201cPrimary care psychology services support people with mild to moderate mental health or disability related difficulties. There are currently over 6,500 children and adolescents on the waiting lists for primary care psychology in Cork and Kerry alone. This has come about through years of neglect and a basic failure\u00a0by successive governments to fund those services.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first step in addressing this crisis is acknowledging its scale. It is essential that the government commits to a comprehensive recruitment drive in primary care.\u201d<\/p>\n
June 23, 2025<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Social Democrats TD Liam Quaide has accused the HSE of attempting to conceal the scale of the crisis in primary care psychology services. Deputy Quaide, who is the party\u2019s spokesperson on mental health and disability, said: \u201cI am deeply frustrated with the unanswered or partly answered parliamentary questions on this matter. The responses I received\u00a0indicate\u00a0a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":12717,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[499,652,653,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-disability","category-liam-quaide","category-mental-health","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n