Dr. Paul D'Alton:

I might try to get to several points that were raised. As Mr. Breslin has said, there is a danger that we can focus on suicide and suicide prevention while losing sight of well-being and mental health. While I accept that we must show the utmost sensitivity to people who are affected by suicide, I emphasise that we need to be very careful about that. There is not a person in the room who does not agree that there is a need to develop suicide prevention and mental health services. If we focus only on those issues, however, we will be at the wrong end of the pitch. We need to focus on well-being as the foundation for later mental health. We are here to discuss well-being as it results from Oireachtas decisions, policies and legislation. If we are serious about changing and improving mental health and well-being, we must start at policy level. This involves proofing future policy for its impact on well-being and mental health. I do not doubt that there is a biological basis to some mental health difficulty but there is overwhelming research showing that much of our well-being and mental health is determined by the society we live in, the impact of our environment and the family support we receive. We have to take that much wider lens to begin with.

Several members of the committee have joined Mr. Breslin and I in speaking about the importance of education and school in this context. I would urge a slight degree of caution when it comes to placing additional expectation and demand on teachers and schools. I appreciate that what happens in our classrooms and schools is terribly important, but I stress that we need to think more widely. As Deputy Mitchell O'Connor has said, when Professor Kevin Nugent and I were here in November, we spoke about the importance of the first 1,000 days of life. Essentially, the architecture of one's brain is built in the first 1,000 days of our lives. There is not a person here who does not know that social exclusion and inequality have an impact on what happens in the first 1,000 days of life. If one spends the first three years of one's life growing up in poverty, it will have an impact on one's brain, well-being and mental health functioning for the rest of one's life. We have to start with a very broad understanding. As I said earlier, serious consideration must be given to the mental health-proofing of all future Government action.