Minister for Mental Health, Mary Butler, is expected to publish the findings of a review within the next fortnight of the care which more than 300 children and young people received from the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) in north Kerry.
Publication of the review has been delayed for over a year.
Minister Butler told the Dáil that her department received the final report over the weekend.
Answering questions from Fianna Fáil Deputy for Kerry, Michael Cahill, she said she is currently reading the report and considering the next steps to take.
"I want to publish it as soon as possible, mindful that families need to receive it as soon as possible," she said.
Later, speaking at the Oireachtas Health Committee, she said she hoped to publish the review "within the next fortnight".
It is thought the minister may bring the review before Cabinet as soon as next Tuesday and, if approved there, it may be sent to families later that day and published next Wednesday.
The review was commissioned after a random audit of 50 files found what the HSE described as "potential concerns" in the care of 16 children.
Most of the issues raised related to prescribing practices, but there were also "some clinical concerns" about the professional practice of a clinician.
The clinician is not currently practising medicine.
'Red flags'
Publication of the review, which was conducted by a team under consultant psychiatrist Dr Colette Halpin, has been delayed because of the scale of what was uncovered.
Last June, Minister Butler told the Oireachtas Health Committee that, once the review got under way, "red flags" were raised about deficiencies in care and the children involved, and their families had to be briefed at a series of open disclosure meetings. The HSE apologised to the children involved and to their families at those meetings.
RTÉ News understands that around half of the 300 children who were the subject of the review have already received apologies for deficiencies in their care.
The HSE has also apologised for the delay in publishing the Halpin review.
In January 2022, a more extensive review which examined the care given to 1,300 children by CAMHS in south Kerry found that 227 of them had been exposed to the risk of serious harm, while 46 children had suffered significant harm.
The failings in south Kerry related to misdiagnoses and mis-prescribing of medication to children under the care of CAMHS there, as well as poor monitoring of treatment and potential adverse effects.
That review was conducted by London-based consultant psychiatrist Dr Sean Maskey. Most of the children who suffered deficiencies in their care in south Kerry were treated by a junior doctor who no longer works with CAMHS.
The Government at the time established a state compensation scheme and, since then, payments totalling millions of euro have been made to or on behalf of children involved in cases which have been settled. Several more cases remain outstanding.
Minister Butler said in July that 230 of the 240 children whose care was found to be deficient had sought compensation through the government's non-adversarial compensation scheme.
A similar scheme is expected to be established to compensate children in north Kerry whose care was found by the Halpin review to have been deficient.
