Mr. Martin Rogan:

One of the challenges for us is that often, when people have a successful outcome, they airbrush that episode out of their lives and can be very low profile. Unfortunately, when people do not have good outcomes, they can be very high profile, sometimes with tragic outcomes or very visible disability and social disadvantage. One of the things our organisation is looking to is creating real opportunities for people with self-experience. In the past number of weeks, we have recruited eight new staff, six of whom are people with self-experience. I was in Limerick yesterday meeting with four of our staff who are peer educators in collaboration with the HSE - the service improvement fund. Again, these are people with self-experience who have recovered and want to give something back. They have really powerful testimony and message to give and it is a message of hope. Sometimes in the past, people who have had quite severe and disabling mental health issues have tried not to mention it because it can have limiting effects on their career, employment or other social opportunities. We need to celebrate the people who really find it difficult every day and still step forward, come to work and are active in family life.