Dail Sketch/Miriam Lord:They'll be breaking out the champagne this morning in those households at breaking point. Despairing parents, run ragged trying to find help for children who show signs of mental illness, know now that help is at hand.
How their weary hearts must have soared when they heard Bertie Ahern say yesterday that a "vision for change" is in the pipeline for them. Parents waiting years and years for their children to be properly diagnosed, while they watch them deteriorate before their eyes, must be delighted to learn there is light at the end of the tunnel.
On the day before Billion Dollar Biffo's Budget, Leinster House was in sombre mood. So much money, sighed the Opposition, yet so much despair.
Yesterday afternoon's black mood was sparked by Monday's transmission of an RTÉ Prime Time programme highlighting the chronic lack of services for young people with psychological difficulties. In particular, comments by Minister for State Tim O'Malley became the focus of Opposition fury.
The Limerick Progressive Democrat deputy, in what wasn't his first foray into controversy with comments about mental health services, declared that some consultants like to maintain long waiting lists because it makes them feel powerful. But while he made the comments, it was the Taoiseach who had to face the consequences in the Dáil.
Deputy O'Malley, who is to charisma what Michael McDowell is to humility, found himself in the chamber for Leaders' Questions by a cruel twist of fate, questions on health having come immediately before. It would have looked very bad had he scuttled away when mental health - his area of, eh, responsibility - became the main topic for discussion.
Tim had to sit and suffer while Enda Kenny and Pat Rabbitte took it in turns to castigate him.
He pursed his lips, gazed into the distance and glowered harmlessly as the Taoiseach was urged to sack him. Bertie muttered he hadn't seen the offending programme and mounted a half-hearted defence of his man.
It would be unfair to judge him on one interview, said the Taoiseach. Which is fair enough. By the sound of it, if that were the case, he would personally have wrung Tim's neck before breakfast.
Where mental health services are concerned, the situation isn't great, he conceded, but there is no point in trying to say that solutions can be found tomorrow. They can't. Pat Rabbitte reminded him he has been in office for 9½ years.
"I'm not going to let that go," bridled Bertie, hurt by the suggestion that little has been done in the area over the last decade.
And then came the reason champagne corks will be popping in the homes where hope has almost flown. Bertie reminded the House that the report of the expert group on mental health was published 11 months ago. It's called A Vision for Change. Eight months ago, an independent monitoring group was set up to monitor the progress of this report.
And the HSE has set up an implementation group to ensure the report is implemented in a timely manner.
That's three committees in less than a year. What more can they do for the children?