There was widespread frustration at a recent meeting of the Fermanagh and Omagh District Council at the tone and nature of a letter received by the council from the Permanent Secretary at the Department of Health (DoH) Richard Pengelly.

The Council had previously written to Mr Pengelly to request that the Department undertake a review of mental health services for young people in the district.

The letter was written after the loss of services provided by the group Breakthru and following concern among councillors about the adequacy of services in the area.

In his response to Council, Mr Pengelly thanked the Council for the letter “about the perceived lack of provision” of services for young people in the area with a number of Councillors stating that the use of the word “perceived” was unhelpful.

Mr Pengelly went on to list a number of services that are available, adding that more will be in place by March 2020.

The Permanent Secretary concluded by saying that he hoped his letter would “reassure” members of the Council.

UUP Councillor Chris Smyth was particularly unhappy with the response: “This letter does not reassure me, and I would be loathe to sit on my hands until March 2020. I don’t accept that service provision is adequate and I don’t like the use of the word perceived because it implies that it is fine and that we are seeing things wrong. I think we need to say to Mr Pengelly that it is not perceived, it is real, and it is so obvious.”

Also speaking on the issue was Independent Councillor Josephine Deehan, who was scathing in her assessment of Mr Pengelly’s letter and she spoke about the list of services that he included in his response.

“The letter is apparently comprehensive, but it does not really address any of the issues raised by this council. He talks about the perceived lack of provision in this area. Unfortunately, this is more than a perceived lack of services. This has been highlighted to us by a wide range of sectors, particularly the education sector.

“The services that he lists do exist, but they largely apply to young people with established mental health difficulties and while those are of course valuable what we are concerned about is a lack of services for young people earlier on before they develop significant mental health problems,” she said before adding that waiting until next year for new services was wholly unacceptable:

“He mentions commissioning of services for addiction in 2020, it is too late then. There has to be some way of stemming this tide of tragedy and loss of life.”

Ms Deehan went on to propose that the Council write back to Mr Pengelly and ask him to outline what new resources are going to be put into the district area.

The motion was passed unanimously.