Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for attending. I am disappointed. We are not here to pick on the witnesses but when other members and I approached the committee's work with a vision and a mission. This was to be an implementation committee and that is why we have focused on interim reports and I am disappointed.

It was my view at the time, and probably that of others, that by running two parallel committees, they would never meet in the middle. That is what seems to have happened over the past several months.

In his opening statement, Mr. Kane stated that in 2016, A Vision for Change came to an end but it had not. We have had reviews and the next one will be to sex it up but it will not provide answers.

Mr. Kane spoke about evidence-based proposals. We have had so many stakeholders inform the committee that they have an evidence-based proposal, namely, the Sláintecare report. By the way, today is its birthday. We had the life experts in the Seanad tell us how the system is not working. Mr. Kane said he is currently engaged in a stakeholder consultation process. We will have to move away from consultation to implementation. The experts are telling us that it is difficult to access mental health services. Fancy information campaigns on TV and so forth can be run, but I am hearing day in, day out on the ground about the difficulties people have accessing mental health services. The first point of access, GP services, are swamped. One might not even get to see a GP now. We should not have have more of these reviews. Instead, we should have a committee such as this to take the first six pages of a report's recommendations and implement them.

Mr. Kane said in his opening statement, "While we have not been in a position to share working documents, I would like to reassure the committee of our shared goal and the oversight group's ongoing commitment to this goal." It is ongoing because there are two planes flying parallel to each other and will not meet. It is like asking a bank manage to cash a "Thank you" note. I am not being disrespectful to the witnesses. I am angry and disappointed with the Minister. I was excited at the start. I believed that if we could work together and achieve something positive, the people who would benefit would be those who needed these services most. While there has been excellent work done since the committee started, the subs are warming up on the other pitch and might never get a game.

First, we need to achieve access the services. We will hear about lack of staff and recruitment and retention. If that is the case, then we should roll out pilot projects. We know where systems are working well and where there are problems in the State. I was recently at a meeting in Tipperary attended by 200 people who were protesting about the lack of availability of mental health services. Up to 220 shoes were displayed at the meeting, each one representing somebody who had taken his or her life since 2012. That is in one county. Surely, that is a red flag and there should be some pilot scheme to address this.

Mr. Kane referred again to evidence-based proposals. We have heard from all the experts and documents have been published. Can we not ask the Minister to take a different view on this? Can we not have an early intervention system to deal with a problem in a certain area of the country and then roll out it out in other areas?

There is a high incidence of cancer in certain areas which are then targeted. There are high instances of youth suicide in certain places which are targeted. In Dublin as many mothers and young women are dying by suicide as fathers and young men. Surely, that has to be red flagged. I am aggrieved that we keep talking about coming up with a plan but it is then claimed more evidence is needed. The evidence is available. We are heading towards a major crisis in mental health services. There is a shortage of up to 500 staff in the system. There will be 1,700 retirements in the next five years but there is no plan to replace them and begin a recruitment drive. I do not mean to be condescending but I am trying to flag that we must be realistic. If this is not working now, can we start thinking outside the box to implement a system that will work instead of just talking about it?