Marcella Corcoran Kennedy (Offaly, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their presentations. From everything they have said, I can hear how committed they all are to public health and I wish to acknowledge that.

Earlier, Deputy Rabbitte referred to how Professor O'Connor was involved with A Vision for Change, which was published in 2006. My focus to a major extent is on mental health well-being and the health promotion side of things. Has Professor O'Connor seen any change in young people who present suffering from anxiety and so on because of the various things that can go wrong as a result of exposure to social media? It is only in the past six or seven years that social media has taken off and become a major part of the lives of young people. I am concerned about the amount of young people, including primary schoolchildren, who are now experiencing mental health issues. It is incredible to me as a mother. I often ask myself how I would manage the social media business if I had young children now. I am keen to hear the views of Professor O'Connor.

I am interested in the impact that alcohol has on mental health. I do not think we do enough taking about the negative impact it can have. It is a lovely social lubricant - no one is being prohibitionist - but we need to inform our people about it as well. I know front-line general practitioners do this but I am keen to hear from the witnesses as to whether we are doing it enough. The HSE's askaboutalcohol.iewebsite is fantastic but are we doing enough to get the messages out?

We now have new communities coming in. They include people who have come from countries where certain practices are the norm such as, for example, female genital mutilation, child marriage and so on. Attendant problems can result. How do general practitioners manage that? Is the college training GPs to recognise if someone has been subject to these practices? Such people would have all the trauma associated with them and this can have an impact on their mental health. Is there an associated training programme now? It is only in recent years that we have begun to deal with people coming from countries such as Sudan or wherever. Is there a programme for GPs or practice nurses to enable them to know what to look for if people come in?