Dr. Joseph Duffy:

Deputy Buckley asked whether the solution was just getting everybody in a room together, thrashing things out and considering the amount of money available. That is one factor but another factor to consider is the culture within the mental health service. As I outlined in my opening remarks, one should consider the promotion of the service as positive, progressive and recovery focused. When we think about mental health we need to think about the mental health of workers and that of staff working in the system. As we know from first-hand experience when people come to work for Jigsaw, the fact that the staff work directly with young people and focus on something that is positive and is very much recovery-focused in terms of early intervention and prevention, really gives a sense of energy and a sense of making a difference. If one works in a service that is very depleted and there is only a small number of people on a team then it is very hard. One can see people make the personal choice to defect and move and, as a result, there is a huge loss of significant experience across the board. Therefore, we need to think about the mental health service much more broadly, and consider ways to ensure Ireland, as a country, has a really positive view of mental health and views it as a spectrum and that early intervention is needed. There are long-term significant supports needed at other ends of it but by working together we can achieve and create them. We must also be mindful that people have different skills at different levels.