Dr. Kieran Moore:

I am not being rude, but I do not want to predict that there will be a raft of suicides. It is, however, the endpoint of severe mental illness that is not treated and sometimes even if it is. That is the reality. There is hope, which is why we all do our job every day. There have been changes and it is also a societal issue. It is for all of us. Every one of us has a brother, or a sister, a son or a relative that suffers from a so-called mental health or mental illness issue. We have to be so careful with the names we use. We do not use the same names for somebody with asthma as if they were different illnesses. For instance, depression is a physical illness, not just a mental illness. It is both. Spokespeople who suffer from it say they suffer huge pain. As I said before, people with a severe mental illness such as bipolar and schizophrenia die 15 years earlier than their peers because of a medical illness. In child and adolescent psychiatry it is nearly impossible to have bloods done on a child and his or her diabetes managed.

To try to answer Deputy Pat Buckley's question, we have to wake up as a society and cop on that this is not just about funding - it is about putting serious money into it - it is also about looking after the people who look after patients. When a person meets a child or an adult who is suffering, he or she gets it. That is what we all need to be doing, not just clinicians. It has to be across the board.

Yes, the prevalence is increasing and the pressures are huge. I refer also to social media. People are moving to self-harm and suicide way before they ever would have before. It is a national emergency. It also links with homelessness. We have to get serious about it and move beyond the stigma. It is like tuberculosis in the past, as if there was something different about it. We are all human and all have it. We all get stressed and suffer from depression at different times. To answer Deputy Pat Buckley's question, it is getting worse. If we are to treat people in trouble, we need to look after those who are treating them, but we are not doing so.