Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank both of the witnesses for their presentations. I represent Dublin North-West, an area with a very high suicide rate. People know about that. It includes Ballymun and Finglas. It is quite a serious issue. I am curious about several things. I refer to the primary care centres that are utilised throughout the country. They help in looking after mental health issues among the youth.

The centres are places people can go to engage. The HSE plans to put one on the Church of the Annunciation site in Finglas. I hope that is at a far more advanced stage now. It is badly needed in the Finglas area. What sort of mental health services will be available for young people there and how will the centre work? The primary care centre in Ballymun is working very well. Responses to parliamentary questions indicated that people in Ballymun are waiting between 18 months and two years for psychiatric service for young people, which is a hell of a long time.

We all know the importance of early identification and intervention. What engagements take place with schools? How does that work? The biggest problem is identifying the people involved and the nature of the problem. Are schools the primary source? Is there any other way we can look at it? Within the schools, there are serious problems with cyberbullying that are leading to mental health issues among young people. Is that a primary engagement that the mental health services have?

According to the statistics Mr. Ryan provided, one third of young people are struggling with mental health issues on an ongoing basis, which is a very high figure. Obviously, we need to have the resources there. Dr. Shari McDaid of Mental Health Reform has said that the mental health services are seriously underfunded. We have heard what Mr. Ryan said and we accept they are badly underfunded. I am also very concerned about dual diagnosis in the context of young children in particular. It is an area that seems to cause problems. It does not matter whether it is a young child or someone else who reports to a hospital or otherwise, there seems to be a particular attitude when alcohol and drugs are involved. Many young children now are smoking hash, which is a big problem. I would like to hear how we are dealing with the issue of dual diagnosis.

There are many groups offering help and Jigsaw is one of them. I am concerned at the amount of private funding they have to get. Companies such as Lidl are contributing and fair play to them. However, it shows the deficit of funding from Government for Jigsaw and other groups. We need regular funding so that they do not need to rely on private donations. Obviously, education is the big issue. We need to get to people early and tackle it at an early stage.

In the past, suicides among young people had a ripple effect with one after another. A few years ago in Dunsoghly in Finglas there were three or four suicides of young people one after another. I am glad to hear Mr. Ryan say that the mental health services put in a team and try to focus on getting to those young people. How do they identify and reach out to those young people to try to stop something snowballing the way it did at one stage in my experience?