A set of standards which all mental health services ill have to meet in coming years was published yesterday.
The standards have been drawn up by the Mental Health Commission (MHC) following widespread consultation, and it has made it clear it will be carrying out inspections to ensure they are implemented.
Dr John Owens, chairman of the commission, said everything set out in the new Quality Framework for Mental Health Services in Ireland was achievable.
"It's a matter of simply doing it. The big difficulty with our services is that they are working under their potential. Even with the resources that they have, and everybody wants more resources and we need more resources, but even with the resources we have we are not getting the value for the money that we're spending, simply because we are not running the services along the evidence-based way that this document and the policy document [A Vision for Change] describes.
"There's still too much emphasis on admission to hospital. The services should be much more based in the community," Dr Owens said.
He added that with the amount of criticism of mental health services recently, staff were in danger of becoming demoralised.
"I think that what we need to do now is to get some sort of healing...people coming together and putting all their shoulders behind the wheel."