Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly TD and Minister for Mental Health and Older People, Mary Butler TD today announced an additional €1.9m in funding for women’s mental health services in 2022 through the Women’s Health Fund. The latest allocation of up to €1.9m from the Women’s Health Fund will see a significant expansion of mental health supports and services for women and girls across Ireland. This investment builds on mental health funding of €1.149 billion in Budget 2022, the largest mental health budget in the history of the state.

A person’s gender can have a significant impact on their mental health needs and service requirements. Ensuring the provision of gender-sensitive mental health services and supports is a key priority for Government, in line with the recommendations of our national mental health policy, Sharing the Vision. This additional funding will allow for further enhancement of our mental health services by ensuring that they appropriately meet the needs of women and girls, who are often disadvantaged when accessing services that are not gender sensitive.

This allocation will increase investment in both community and primary care mental health services for women and girls, with an emphasis on mental health promotion and early intervention. In addition, specialist services for women and girls who have more complex care needs will receive further funding to ensure they are gender and trauma aware.

Following consultation with the HSE, the Department will allocate up to €1.9m to accelerate the development of a range of services to support women and girls, including:

• Increasing access to digital mental health services
• Innovating in perinatal mental health
• Enhancing specialist eating disorder supports
• Targeted mental health supports for marginalised groups
• Targeted mental health supports for women in addiction
• Responding to at risk girls’ mental health
• Continuing to listen to the mental health needs of women and girls