Luke Flanagan (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I heard A Vision for Change mentioned. I love the idea that people can be treated in the community and are not stuck unnecessarily in large units. However, that is not happening, and there is no point in trying to cod people into thinking it is. In fact, the opposite is happening. In order to deal with the shortage of staff in the hospital services, staff are being taken from community care, which does not make a lot of sense. People who could have dealt with their issues in the community no longer have services available to them and are less likely to use them. As a result, they are more likely to become increasingly mentally ill and to need the unit in Roscommon.

The Government can say what it wants but it does not change reality. It is not implementing A Vision for Change or being fair to people in the psychiatric hospital. They are people who are at their most vulnerable. Families have contacted me and told me they are terrified to send mentally ill members of their families in that direction because they feel they would be safer at home, unsafe as that is.

Instead of turning up at runs in aid of Pieta House at 4 a.m., as many Government Deputies did as well as Deputy Naughten and me, we need to get more serious about this. The Government can cry about it when it is too late, but it should do something before it is too late. It is not on. We are going back to the equivalent of Bedlam and lunatic asylums with the policies of the Government. I thought we had moved on but we have not.

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