Dr. Bernie McCabe:

I find it difficult to follow on in answering a number of those questions because Dr. Montwill has answered many of them. I emphasise that there is a difference in the groups of people about whom I have specifically talked. I have talked about the mentally unwell, including people who have suicidal ideation and people with crisis pregnancies who are despairing and distressed. One can imagine one's self in a crisis. If one crashed one's car into a bollard, one would not be able to think straight for the next five minutes. Imagine how a woman would feel on discovering she is pregnant. It may take her a week, two weeks, three weeks or a day - it depends - to come to terms with it, but there are many problems in terms of her thinking processes during that time. I have dealt with those. We can help in those situations.

The situation in which we cannot help and in which we have no role is that of a woman who does not have any of those thoughts. A person can drive into a bollard and say to himself or herself, "I drove into a bollard - no problem." One can have a person with a crisis pregnancy who is a little bit more resilient and who does not get upset but finds herself before a psychiatrist because her GP is not quite sure what to do. The woman may say: "I am pregnant and I do not want to be. I have been told to come here, so here I am." Our job is to assess that woman and determine whether she has a mental illness and whether she has psychiatric or psychological sequelae with which we can or cannot help. If we cannot find anything to help her with, then we have no role.

We have people coming to us all the time as a result of the recession, as Dr. Seán Ó Domhnaill mentioned. We have a number of people coming and going. A person will present and say, "I cannot pay my mortgage. I am not depressed but I am distressed and I do not know what to do. I was sent here; what can you do for me?" As a psychiatrist, I can make sure the person is not ill. My psychiatric services are multidisciplinary, thanks to the junior Minister for Health, and I can make sure that my multidisciplinary team have nothing to offer the person. If we do have something to offer the person, then we do so, but if we do not, I can direct that person to outside services such as MABS, the bank or the social welfare officer. That is what I mean by that statement. There is a different group whose situation was not addressed earlier, and I am trying to address that.