The largest mental health support organisation in the State has said it is is being forced to scale back services for people with mental health problems due to a lack of State funding.
Grow, a national network of more than 145 groups that help people who have suffered, or are suffering, from mental health problems, said it is being forced to reduce staffing and support services in some areas, despite unprecedented demand for help.
In the north-east area alone, it said it is shutting its regional office, while support services in the Cavan-Monaghan region are under threat.
In other parts of the Republic, it said it needed to double staffing levels to provide support to those most in need.
Grow's chief executive, Michele Kerrigan, said: "We're listening to people on the ground who are literally in tears because they are in such desperate need of mental-health support. But we don't have the funding to meet their needs."
She said she was dismayed the group was unable to support people in crisis at a time when the Government was implementing its blueprint for developing mental health services, A Vision for Change.
"We're now coming up to the second year of the implementation of this report. It's a fine document and places emphasis on good community-based services, but nothing is physically happening on the ground.
"In communities right across the country, services are not in place," she said.
Grow receives around 80 per cent of its funding from the State, while the remainder comes from fundraising and donations. This year it is due to receive €1.3 million in State funding.
It has a total of 23 staff working in frontline services and management, and a further nine part-time frontline workers.
Ms Kerrigan said Grow's services in some parts of the Republic had received generous State support, but other areas were seriously under-resourced and services were now under threat.
For example, she said in the east of the country, including Dublin, it had two full-time field workers to cover a population of more than one million people.
"It's been a hard slog for a few years now. Some areas of the country haven't had their funding increased since prior to 2004, so there's isn't an equitable spread of services across the country," Ms Kerrigan said.
She added that Grow, along with other mental-health groups, was alarmed at suggestions that up to €50 million which was ring-fenced for the mental-health sector had been used in other parts of the health service.
However, a spokesman for the Health Service Executive (HSE) said the Vision for Change report was being implemented fully and that new staff were being recruited around the State.
"Resources were assigned to each local health office under a range of specialities during 2006 and 2007 and investment was used to recruit additional mental health staff," the HSE said in a statement.
"[ During this time] 240 additional staff have been recruited. This includes 16 consultant adult psychiatry positions, six consultants with a special interest in rehabilitation, and three consultants in the psychiatry of old age, as well as one consultant psychiatrist with a special interest in psychotherapy."
A HSE spokesman added that next year the health service would continue to meet the requirements of A Vision for Change.
It would also be recruiting more consultant child psychiatric staff, as well as staff to facilitate the commissioning of additional bed capacity for children.
