Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Worry is not a basis for not using the service. The types of language and debate we have heard on this issue are such that I am not surprised people are worried. People who present with very challenging behaviour have always been dealt with by the service. That is what the mental health service does. In the main, 95% of people can be dealt with in the community but there will always be those who will require the acute unit and those who present with challenging behaviour.

The Central Mental Hospital, under Professor Harry Kennedy, has now developed a very good outreach service to guide local services for people who present with challenging behaviour. Before any call was made, he was already working on this because that is what the service does. The staff, who are specialists, are good at this, and that is what they do.

I acknowledge that Deputy Flanagan has an interest in this area; there is no doubt about it. I plead with people to allow us to get on with what we need to do with mental health services. Let us reassure families who need reassurance that when their loved ones seek to avail of a service, it will not only be available but will also be safe and secure. We need to reconfigure, however. We cannot have a community-based service if all our staff are in the acute unit.

With regard to the review of the Mental Health Act, whose outcome I cannot predict, I have asked that the Mental Health Commission, which licenses only the acute unit, thereby resulting in the unit's very specific numbers, to start to license community-based programmes also so there will not be a continuous draw from those programmes.

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