Le: Minister of State with responsibility for Mental Health and Older People; Mary Butler
Foilsithe
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The total allocation for mental health services in 2022 is 1.149 billion euro. This is another record budget for mental health services.
It delivers an additional 47 million euro for next year and comprises 24 million euro for new developments, 13 million euro for existing levels of service and 10 million euro in once off funding for mental health initiatives in response to COVID-19.
The new development funding covers investment in clinical programmes, out of hours supports, community mental health teams, including CAMHS and other important priorities.
1.15 million euro will be allocated next year to continue the roll out of specialist eating disorder teams in CHOs 1, 3, 5 and 6.
New mental health services for older people will also be developed, in line with the model of care for specialist mental health services for older people and will be piloted in 2022.
Out of hours supports will continue to be developed with investment of over 1.4 million euro in crisis resolution teams.
In addition, two new Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service telehubs will be established.
Enhancing the capacity of community mental health teams, with a particular emphasis on CAMHS is being prioritised with a total allocation of 6 million euro.
Investment is also being made in recovery focussed supports, including peer supports, employment supports and recovery colleges.
10 million euro in once off funding for mental health initiatives, announced earlier this year, is being carried over to 2022. These initiatives have been finalised, with planning work commencing this quarter and ready to roll out early in 2022. These initiatives are focussed on enhanced signposting and access to existing mental health services and supports; initiatives for children, young people and students; and additional psychosocial responses, recognising that people will require varying levels of support.
For the purposes of clarification, a further 10 million euro was announced yesterday by Minister McGrath, as a once off funding measure to provide additional investment in mental health services in 2021, with a particular emphasis on community and voluntary based supports.
This year, I cleared a historic deficit in mental health funding which had grown to 53 million euro by the end of 2020. The successful reduction of this deficit to zero is critical to ensuring that our mental health services can operate effectively and efficiently from a stable funding base and enable enhanced developments going forward. This is reflected in the 2022 Budget through the provision of an additional 13 million euro to address rising costs for existing levels of service next year.
The total budget allocation for older persons services in 2022 is 2.33 billion euro. This includes 30 million euro for new developments.
This builds on last year’s unprecedented investment by Government.
The COVID-19 pandemic has posed huge challenges across society and most especially for people living in nursing homes.
The report of the COVID-19 Nursing Homes Expert Panel, published in August 2020, has given us an evidence-informed basis to learn from the pandemic.
To continue the substantial progress being made on its implementation, I am delighted to announce that 17.6 million euro is being allocated to address the recommendations of the Expert Panel.
This includes, among other measures:
Central to the 2022 Budget is the further investment of 7.3 million euro in dementia services in areas such as memory assessment and support services, memory technology resource rooms and the national intellectual disability memory service. It will also allow for new initiatives such as a dementia registry so that we can build a clearer picture and evidence base on dementia in Ireland.
We will also increase the ringfencing of new home support hours for people with dementia from 5% in 2021 to 11% in 2022.
Taken together, this will represent 15 million euro of investment dedicated to dementia in 2022, to supplement the 12.9 million euro of additional funding in 2021.
I have long been an advocate for the development of services for people with dementia and their families and I am delighted to be able to continue the focused investment in these services and supports.
Additional investment will be allocated for 9 Co-ordinators across the country under the Integrated Care Programme for Older People Falls and Fracture initiative and to operationalise the Nursing Homes Support Scheme (Amendment) Act 2021, which enhances protections for family farms and businesses under Fair Deal.
Overall, 2022 will bring further enhancement of services and supports in both older persons and mental health, building on the unprecedented levels of funding in 2021.