The Health Service Executive (HSE) has distanced itself from comments made by Minister of State for Health Tim O'Malley, who said that some health professionals were happy to maintain long waiting lists of children in need of psychiatric assessments.
The HSE's most senior official in charge of mental health, Martin Rogan, said there was no incentive for consultant psychiatrists in maintaining long waiting lists.
Mr O'Malley told RTÉ earlier this week that some health professionals liked having long waiting lists and it made them feel powerful.
He has refused to withdraw the comments and yesterday said he will ask the HSE to validate the waiting lists and report on why they are so long in different parts of the country.
Figures released to The Irish Times earlier this year show more than 3,000 children and adolescents are waiting to be assessed across the country. Most of these children are based in the Dublin area.
Mr Rogan, the HSE's national care group manager for mental health, said consultants were playing a crucial role in reducing waiting list numbers.
He said: "We're bringing on eight new teams each year for the next four years. If we thought they [consultants] were a problem, we'd be cutting their numbers," he told The Irish Times.
Mr Rogan said waiting lists had been cut dramatically in some areas due to the use of specialist nurses in helping to assess children and direct them towards appropriate services.
Waiting lists in Co Kildare, for instance, had been cut from about a year and a half to just a few weeks as a result of this new approach, he said. The approach to waiting lists is being adopted in parts of Dublin and may be extended across the country.
The Irish Hospital Consultants Association, meanwhile, said Mr O'Malley's statements were of "grave concern" and it is seeking a meeting to discuss the issue with him.
Opposition leaders strongly criticised Mr O'Malley in the Dáil yesterday.
Labour leader Pat Rabbitte said he had "despicably passed the buck" on the waiting list issue and he called on Taoiseach Bertie Ahern to consider dismissing him. "Will you say, for once in your life, that there will be some accountability in your Government when you have a Minister who is manifestly incapable of doing his job?" Mr Rabbitte asked.
Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny also said Mr O'Malley should not remain in office after his "callous outburst".
The Taoiseach, however, told the Dáil that the Minister was doing his job to the best of his ability and pointed to progress being made in the psychiatric service.
Mr Ahern said he had not seen the RTÉ programme, but he criticised the tone of Opposition attacks on the Minister.
"If you are going to jump over what he said in an interview, as against what he has been doing for the last number of years, I think that is totally unfair, quite frankly," he said.
Mr Ahern said that they were trying to improve the mental health service rather than "trying to personalise against individuals who are doing their job".
He said mental health tribunals and inspections were up and running, while the resources going into mental health had trebled in recent years.
