Mr. Martin Rogan:

The mental health service has 1 million service contacts per year and 20,000 people have been referred to the mental health service. If people have been referred to that service, people must also leave it in order to do that. It has a fixed capacity. Part of the role of our organisation is to make sure people have progressive pathways onwards and forward and that communities are more open to the space. We need to highlight the that mental health services are increasingly successful in terms of people retrieving their lives and making progress in their lives. That is probably the untold story in mental health and is certainly one on which we need to focus much more effectively.

With stigma, we are inclined to locate the problem within the individual. If we use the language of discrimination, we are saying it is other people's attitudes that need to be adapted. This is the reason for initiatives such as Healthy Cities. The mayor of New York, for example, has dedicated 1% of his budget, which is $850 million, to a city-wide initiative to promote mental health. Limerick is a very good example of a Healthy Cities approach, which actively incorporates mental health into its objectives. Again, our organisation is very active in that process. Limerick Mental Health Association now has a three-week event that includes 34 different partners around Mental Health Week in October. It is much more positive, progressive and optimistic programme without airbrushing away some of the difficult challenges that are very real but that can be managed to allow the individual to go forward successfully.