Sharing the Vision (2020 - 2030) is Ireland’s ambitious, national mental health policy to enhance the provision of mental health services and supports from mental health promotion, prevention, early intervention and specialist mental health service delivery during the period 2020 - 2030. It builds on the achievements of the previous policy A Vision for Change, with a focus on a wider, cross-sectoral service provision and aimed at the mental health needs of the whole population. Sharing the Vision contains 100 specific recommendations of varying complexity and timeframes. Between 2012 and 2024, the mental health budget has grown by €601 million of which €352 million relates to development funding for priority service enhancements (see appendices 1 and 2). The total allocation for mental health services for 2025 is almost €1.5 billion, a record funding level and an increase for the fifth year in a row. 

PDF P.29 Recommendation 21 - Dedicated community-based Addiction Service Teams should be developed/enhanced with psychiatry input, as required, and improved access to mental health supports in the community should be provided to individuals with co-existing low-level mental health and addiction problems

PDF p.48 Recommendation 54 - Every person with Mental Health Difficulties coming into contact with the forensics system should have access to comprehensive stepped (or tiered) mental health support that is recovery-oriented and based on integrated co-produced recovery care plans supported by advocacy services as required. 
Links to other recommendations/external programmes - Report of the High-Level Taskforce on the mental health and addiction challenges of persons interacting with the criminal justice system.

Recommendation 55 - There should be ongoing resourcing of and support for diversion schemes where individuals with mental health difficulties are diverted from the criminal justice system at the earliest possible stage and have their needs met within community and/or nonforensic mental health setting.
Links to other recommendations/external programmes - Report of the High-Level Taskforce on the mental health and addiction challenges of persons interacting with the criminal justice systeM

PDF P.49 Recommendation 56 - The development of further Intensive Care Rehabilitation Units (ICRUs) should be prioritised following successful evaluation of operation of the new ICRU on the Portrane Campus
Links to other recommendations/external programmes - Report of the High-Level Taskforce on the mental health and addiction challenges of persons interacting with the criminal justice system (recommendation 87).

Recommendation 57 - A tiered model of integrated service provision for individuals with a dual diagnosis (e.g. substance misuse with mental illness) should be developed to ensure that pathways to care are clear. Similarly, tiered models of support should be available to people with a dual diagnosis of intellectual disability and/or autism and a mental health difficulty

PDF P.57 Recommendation 87 - The Department of Justice and the Implementation Monitoring Committee, in consultation with stakeholders, should determine whether legislation needs to be amended to allow for greater diversion of people with mental health difficulties from the criminal justice system.
Links to other recommendations/external programmes - Recommendations 54 and 55 Report of the High-Level Taskforce on the mental health and addiction challenges of persons interacting with the criminal justice system.

Investment this year focuses on child and youth mental health, including targeted initiatives that support children and young people as they transition from child to adult mental health services, to ensure that they can continue to access the supports that they need:

• €2.1 million has been allocated to NFMHS to deliver 18 new beds to facilitate movement through the care pathway at CMH. The opening of further beds at Portrane will help alleviate serious pressures for the judicial system
• €693,000 for suicide reduction initiatives, including additional funding for the national counselling service for people affected by suicide and self-harm, additional funding for suicide bereavement supports, funding to support the scaling up of CAIRDE, an initiative to support the mental health of men in the construction sector, as well funding for the LGBT Ireland Champions Programme, which offers cultural awareness training for HSCPs
• €2.2 million for initiatives including the expansion of the Family Peer Support model, additional Recovery Coordinators, additional Senior Peer Support Workers, the expansion of Digital Mental Health Supports, the expansion of the Single Point of Access for community paediatric services, including CAMHS
• €2.9 million for CAMHS service developments, including the expansion of CAMHS hubs, additional CAMHS ED liaison supports, additional staffing for CAMHS teams, and funding to enhance the FRC Counselling Therapeutic Framework

These targeted investments have been directed by national mental health policy as outlined in Sharing the Vision, our national mental health policy, and Connecting for Life, Ireland’s national strategy to reduce self-harm and suicide. In broad terms, the continued development of mental health services has been aimed at:

• modernising services that historically were centred on institutionalised care
• promoting positive mental health at all levels of society
• taking a person-centred approach with a focus on enabling and supporting recovery