Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have a number of questions and will try to ask them as quickly as possible.

I do not want to see the work of this committee running parallel to any other review. There have been too many reviews of reviews of reviews. We already had reports from the psychiatric nurses and the Royal College of Surgeons. We had a review of A Vision for Change and we are talking about another. We have an excellent document from Mental Health Reform containing another review of A Vision for Change. Therefore, we could be going down the wrong path already. Where would Mr. Kane like to see this committee going? I acknowledge that is a very broad and open question. If Mr. Kane were sitting here as a committee member, what would be his number one priority? Would he envisage a timeframe for its implementation?

Deputy John Brassil mentioned education and the schools approach. I certainly agree with that. Page 51 of the mental health reform report, the review of A Vision for Change, which is produced already, contains all this information. It is an exciting document and it will cut out a lot of work for us. I have a note stating prevention in schools should be the key to reducing the stigma and risk of suicide. This would involve a low investment for a very high return.

I do not want this committee to be a talking shop. I want it to be an implementation body that works over each quarter, perhaps. Do we honestly need another review of reviews when all the reviews have been produced by professionals and experts? I have said at a meeting on the Committee on the Future of Healthcare that the experts we have left out of most committees are the 16 and 18 year olds who experienced the traumas, and the people with disabilities. The latter have been forgotten about.