Social Democrats TD Liam Quaide has criticised the HSE after the Minister for Mental Health was unable to provide the D\u00e1il with information on approved psychology posts in older adult mental health services.<\/p>\n
Deputy Quaide, who is the party\u2019s spokesperson on mental health, said:<\/p>\n
\u201cMinister Mary Butler\u2019s failure to answer a straightforward question about workforce levels was disappointing and reflects a wider pattern of obfuscation and deflection by the HSE in its responses to elected representatives.<\/p>\n
\u201cI asked the Minister for very basic information \u2013 the number of approved psychology posts per population in older adult mental health teams across each health region, and for a breakdown of which integrated health areas have none at all.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe idea that our national health service cannot say where these posts exist, and where they don\u2019t, should concern us all.<\/p>\n
\u201cPsychology has been recognised as a core part of older adult mental health teams since \u2018A Vision for Change\u2019 in 2006, which set staffing benchmarks for multidisciplinary services \u2013 a commitment that was reaffirmed in \u2018Sharing the Vision\u2019 in 2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cNational mental health policy has long recognised that older people with difficulties such as depression, anxiety, trauma and complex physical illness need proper access to psychological assessment and therapy \u2013 not just medication.<\/p>\n
\u201cYet here we are in 2026, and the Minister cannot tell the D\u00e1il how many psychologist posts are approved to work in these teams, or which areas have none.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am also concerned about figures from the Mental Health Commission showing a growing number of older adults receiving Electro Convulsive Therapy, with the average age of recipients rising to 64 in 2024. Research also shows that older adults with mental health difficulties are more at risk of unnecessary A&E admissions.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we are serious about dignity, autonomy and quality of care in later life, psychology cannot continue to be treated as an optional extra or add-on to services.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am calling on the Minister to urgently instruct the HSE to compile and publish region-by-region data on psychology staffing in older adult mental health services, along with a plan to resource teams in line with longstanding government policy.<\/p>\n
\u201cOlder people and their families have been promised whole-person, community-based mental health care for two decades. It\u2019s time those promises were matched with staffing, funding and honesty about where services are falling short.\u201d<\/p>\n
January 23, 2026<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Social Democrats TD Liam Quaide has criticised the HSE after the Minister for Mental Health was unable to provide the D\u00e1il with information on approved psychology posts in older adult mental health services. Deputy Quaide, who is the party\u2019s spokesperson on mental health, said: \u201cMinister Mary Butler\u2019s failure to answer a straightforward question about workforce […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15121,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[726,652,653,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hse","category-liam-quaide","category-mental-health","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n