{"id":515075,"date":"2026-03-05T03:00:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T03:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/515075\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T03:00:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T03:00:13","slug":"kerry-psychiatrist-working-from-middle-east-cttee-hears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/515075\/","title":{"rendered":"Kerry psychiatrist working from Middle East, cttee hears"},"content":{"rendered":"

An Oireachtas Health Committee has heard that around 60% of consultant psychiatrists for Kerry Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) are never on site.<\/p>\n

The integrated healthcare area manager for Kerry told this morning’s committee that the “majority” of the roles are carried out remotely.<\/p>\n

Julie O’Neill said north Kerry has two whole-time equivalent staff and south Kerry has 1.7.<\/p>\n

However, seven consultants collectively provide this cover and none are permanent.<\/p>\n

Ms O’Neill said they work a mixture of in-person and telemedicine appointments.<\/p>\n

She was responding to Sinn F\u00e9in TD David Cullinane, who said: “Every time we seem to ask, we seem to get a different answer.”<\/p>\n

Dr Amanda Burke, National Clinical Lead for Child and Youth Mental Health said telemedicine services are “acceptable, but it’s not as good”.<\/p>\n

“Young people have told us that they find it more difficult to engage with someone remotely, ” she said.<\/p>\n

The committee also heard that a consultant psychiatrist is remotely providing care to children in Co Kerry from the Middle East.<\/p>\n

\"Amanda
\nDr Amanda Burke said telemedicine services are ‘acceptable’ but ‘not as good’<\/p>\n

Independent senator Tom Clonan said: “I have heard some consultants doing clinics remotely from the Middle East, from the Gulf states.<\/p>\n

“Maybe they might come home now on Helen McEntee’s plane.”<\/p>\n

Mr Clonan said he was “very concerned that the damage that has been evident and the harm that has been done in Kerry North CAMHS is being replicated throughout the republic”.<\/p>\n

“That is a matter of grave national concern,” he said.<\/p>\n

He pushed the representatives to confirm how many permanent psychiatrists with the relevant higher specialist training were in place.<\/p>\n

Mr Clonan said it was “clear” from the Maskey and the North Kerry CAMHS report that the HSE is “appointing consultants to positions with no higher specialist training”.<\/p>\n

“They are inappropriately prescribing and medicating children, sedating them, chemically imprisoning them,” he said.<\/p>\n

The independent report into North Kerry CAMHS found a risk for potential harm in 209 cases.<\/a><\/p>\n

The senator asked Ms O’Neill to write to him to confirm that all of the consultants had the relevant higher specialist training.<\/p>\n

\"Independent
\nIndependent senator Tom Clonan said it was a ‘matter of grave national concern’<\/p>\n

“Because I very much doubt that to be the case,” said Mr Clonan. “In fact, I know that not to be the case.<\/p>\n

“I don’t think it’s just defined to Kerry CAMHS. All over the country, there are people appointed to posts in psychiatry that have no higher specialist training<\/p>\n

“You don’t find that in other disciplines.”<\/p>\n

Dr Burke said that while there were still some consultants that fell under that category, they had to be signed off by the regional clinical director and supervised.<\/p>\n

“We recognise that in the past that there were consultants being employed that weren’t on the specialist register. And there’s been a very robust governance piece around that,” she said.<\/p>\n

Ms Burke said she understands that all consultants “that are inputting into Kerry are on the specialist register, it’s just that some of them are sessional, some of them work part-time.”<\/p>\n

She said a permanent consultant who is there “every day of the week, every week” is the “model they aspire for”.<\/p>\n

“It had been in the past extremely difficult to recruit consultants,” she said.<\/p>\n

She said there are still people across the country who are not on the specialist register.<\/p>\n

“They have to be signed off directly by the regional clinical director in those areas,” she said.<\/p>\n

She added supervision arrangements have been put in place, with an “aggressive and targeted recruitment campaign to get people on the specialist register” underway.<\/p>\n

Read more: North Kerry CAMHS review found potential risk of harm in 209 cases<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Oireachtas Health Committee has heard that around 60% of consultant psychiatrists for Kerry Child and Adolescent Mental…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":515076,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[49,48,84,393,394],"class_list":["post-515075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515075\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/515076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}