Psychology, social care, and occupational therapy each provide therapeutics for different facets of need for each patient\u00a0\u2014 from assessing difficulties or trauma, to negotiating family housing and welfare challenges, to delivering the practical skills for a patient to leave a centre safely.<\/p>\n
Cork East TD Liam Quaide<\/a>, a clinical psychologist who received the information on staffing from the HSE<\/a> via parliamentary question, said: \u201cAn in-patient mental health setting should not be reduced to beds, medication, and observation.\u201d<\/p>\n He said people admitted to such units \u201care often at one of the lowest and most frightening points in their lives\u201d. Mr Quaide added:\u00a0<\/p>\n \n These services cannot just be places of supervision and risk management. They have to be places of therapeutic care and recovery.\u00a0\n <\/p>\n The legal regulations for approved centres stress the importance of such multidisciplinary care, with each resident required to have an individual care plan to be regularly reviewed and updated by their multidisciplinary team.<\/p>\n However, the parliamentary responses to Mr Quaide suggest few approved centres are operating with fully functional multidisciplinary supports.<\/p>\n In the Midlands \u2014 including Laois, Offaly, Longford, and Westmeath \u2014 the HSE said historically and currently there are no assigned therapists for psychology, occupational therapy, or social work.<\/p>\n In two Mayo centres, there is no dedicated full-time psychology position, while social work postings in both were lost as a result of a series of HSE recruitment embargoes.<\/p>\n At the acute mental health care unit in St James\u2019s Hospital in Dublin, there is no funded or approved psychology post for adult support and no social worker.<\/p>\n The acute mental health unit at Cork University Hospital has no approved psychologist, with support instead provided by community in-reach services \u2014 the community unit which sees a client may continue to treat them when admitted to hospital.<\/p>\n \u00c9ist Linn, Cork\u2019s child and adolescent inpatient unit, has had no psychologist for the past 18 months, and no social worker for more than two years, though a candidate was recently accepted for the post.<\/p>\n Mr Quaide said the overall pattern is one of dedicated multidisciplinary care repeatedly being substituted by lesser services such as in-reach, adding that in many cases the gaps seen \u201care not vacancies at all \u2014 the post was never funded, never approved, or was simply removed during a recruitment embargo\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople in acute mental distress throughout the country are being denied the full therapeutic support they need,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n A HSE spokesperson said it \u201cregrets any impact\u201d on people using its services caused by the vacancies.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere posts become vacant, local management has a responsibility to ensure that the associated whole time equivalent and funding are utilised in a way that best meets service priorities,\u201d they said, including redeployment of resources in order to \u201cbetter address population needs\u201d.<\/p>\n![\"Clinical](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/5121552_6_articleinline_SOCIAL_20DEMOCRATS_20NATIONAL_20CONFERENCE_20_106_1_.jpg\" "\\"Clinical")
Clinical psychologist and Social Democrats Cork East TD Liam Quaide: ‘People in acute mental distress throughout the country are being denied the full therapeutic support they need.’ Picture: Gareth Chaney<\/p>\n