The Executive Clinical Director of Kerry Mental Health services has described a report into the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) as a ''very shameful moment'' for the HSE led operation.
Dr Maura Young said the failings have had a ''huge impact'' on the lives of the affected children and their parents.
The review of the care of more than 1,300 children who attended the HSE-run South Kerry Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service found that 46 children suffered significant harm.
She has offered her apologies on behalf of the HSE.
''There has been a breakage of trust and it is going to take a long time to rebuild the trust,'' Dr Young said.
She added she heard from parents and their children that they experienced side effects from the medication prescribed.
They recounted being too sleepy to engage in school and with their families.
There were also physical effects, including blood pressure problems.
Dr Young said often the parents were ''very distressed'' detailing their stories.
She said parents explained how their children withdrew from school and they were ''not the child that they had known.''
Many parents described it as a ''dark time'' that they found difficult talking about.
The Clinical Director added that after reading the report, it was clear that the voices of the child and the parents were not heard and were pushed out of the service and that she wanted to restore their voices.
Concerns were raised about doctors practice in 2018 and 2019.
''Actions were taken, but were not sufficient to stop practices of the doctor,'' Dr Young said.
Dr Young said they are looking at the HSE's supervisory systems and governance arrangements and they are being overhauled.
She acknowledged that those affected are going to be left with ongoing difficulties from this, adding that they are developing a clinical support team that will be based in Kerry and will help support the children and families involved.
''We can't defend this service and the report, all that we can say is that we have investigated it fully and have a number of recommendations that we are committed to implementing,'' Dr Young said.
''This has gone on for over four years, red flags were being raised but those red flags were not sufficiently addressed.''
Dr Young said her focus now is on improving the service so people get the service they deserve.
She said they are reviewing how they operate, supervise and govern their services, and they have put in more robust supervisory arrangements. She said the team that is currently there is not the team that was there throughout this incident.
No 'permanent full-time consultant'
The post of a consultant clinical lead for this particular team has not been filled, she said.
"We still do not have a permanent full-time consultant within the service, that is a source of deep regret," Dr Young added.
"We have tried extremely hard over the last five years to fill that post. We have interviewed two people who were successful but for various reasons did not take up the post.
"It's extremely difficult to recruit to a CAMHS post nationally and internationally and that has been a significant challenge to us here in Kerry and certainly contributed to this situation."
Dr Young said she knows there has been a breakdown in trust and it is going to take "a long time" to build back that trust.
"I'm committed to implementing those 35 recommendations," she said.
"It's going to be a long process to build back the trust but this report sets us on that right path."
'Failures across multiple levels'
The Minister of State for Mental Health and Older People, has said she wanted to assure parents of children attending CAMHS teams around the country that she is putting a complete audit in place of all 72 teams that are operating.
Speaking on RTÉ's 6.1 News, Mary Butler said that this would ensure that what has happened in Kerry is not happening anywhere else.
Speaking to RTÉ's Drivetime today, she described the findings of the HSE report as "a catalogue of failures across multiple levels."
"The fact that when concerns were raised in 2018 and no effective action was evident to address them, that for me is absolutely damning, because I believe two whole years of over-prescribing could have been avoided.
"It's a complete failure of the HSE to deliver services, appropriate child and adolescent mental health supports, to a lot of children in the Kerry area.
"I don't know whether serious harm could have been prevented to the 46 children but I do know that children wouldn't have been over-medicated for four years if action had been taken after two years.
The Minister said that she could not answer why the department was not made aware of the concerns in 2018 and that she could only assume, after many conversations, that it was other personnel in south Kerry CAMHS who were made aware and that to her knowledge no-one in the HSE at a senior level outside of Kerry CAMHS was informed.
She said: "There was absolutely no governance whatsoever, there was no oversight, and there was no form of supervision, it was non-existent from what I have read in the report."
