Geraldine Feeney (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Moloney. As he noted in his presentation, he took up this job a little under two years ago. He is probably the best Minister with responsibility for mental health issues and disability we have had in a long time. I say this because he has put his political head on the block so many times. He says what he wants and promises to have it introduced by next March, for example, and then to do something else by the end of April. I have watched the Minister of State, whether before the Joint Committee on Health and Children every quarter, on "Prime Time", on a news bulletin or at some launch. He shoots from the hip but he speaks from the heart.

I commend the Minister of State because he is doing a very brave thing. I am glad Senator Fitzgerald acknowledged the work of the Minister of State and that there have been changes since he came into office. The Minister of State said on a number of occasions that the first thing he did on being appointed to office was to read himself into A Vision for Change. As Senator Corrigan said, it is good to start on a positive. We need to be positive when it comes to mental health issues and see the glass as half full rather than half empty. I am glad we have a mind and a pair of hands like the Minister of State's to steer this issue for us.

I have certainly seen changes take place. Eight years ago, when I came into the House, I was spokesperson on health and children. Those were the dark and dreary days when mental health was the Cinderella of the health service, if not the Cinderella and the two ugly sisters all rolled into one. Very little was happening at that time in this area but the Minister of State has taken it by the scruff of the neck and shaken it up.

I am glad the Minister acknowledged earlier that while he would expect support on his own side of the House, he would look for support from the Opposition benches as well. I have no doubt, having listened to Senators Mullen and Fitzgerald, that he will get that support.

Having observed what the Minister of State is doing and where he is coming from, and from talking to others, I know he has the support of the medical and nursing community as well as the public. When I met Dr. Tony Bates of Headstrong, he told me an interesting story of which I have no doubt the Minister of State is aware. At the Headstrong unit in Galway one day, Dr. Bates overheard a young man take a call on his mobile phone from a friend who was clearly asking him where he was. When he said he was down at Headstrong, the friend asked him where that was, thinking it was a pub or café. The young man replied that it was the place to drop into if a person has mental health issues.

That leads me to the whole area of stigma. As Senator Corrigan rightly said, it is lack of information and awareness that leads to stigma. However, young people of second and third level age do not have an issue with stigma. It is the older members of society who have been reared with this stigma and who carry it on.

As I said in the House the day after George Lee resigned from politics, if one eighth of the media coverage given to him could be given to the stigma that surrounds mental health, it would alleviate the sorrow and suffering of hundreds of thousands of people on this little island, not to mention worldwide. It is a problem that follows mental health issues worldwide.

I would love to think this issue would be taken up by the members of the media, who are at this moment talking about how the new Ministers feel about their new appointments, and whether they are happy or unhappy. They are talking about one particular female Minister and saying she must be grossly unhappy. I have just met her, and she is jumping over the moon she is so delighted with her new portfolio and looking forward to the challenge.