Joan Freeman (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the formation of the committee and the focus it will put on mental health in the Traveller community. As most of what is in my submission repeats what has been said, I will edit it as a I move along to focus on what I want to speak about.

I will jump straight into it with the crisis within general mental health services and the unacceptable inadequacies and underfunding in many key areas. Whatever I say, it is not directed under any circumstance at the Minister of State, Deputy Jim Daly. We have had serious problems in mental health services for decades, whereas the man has only been in position for two years and is trying his best. Everything I say is directed at the Department of Health because no one is listening in it.

I was Chairman of the Joint Committee on the Future of Mental Health Care which laid out in its final report in 2018 that there was much about which to be concerned in the availability and implementation of mental health services. This does not just relate to Travellers but to all of Ireland. That warning was also articulated in the Mental Health Commission's 2017 annual report. Such a note of alarm from the State's statutory body for the quality assessment of mental health services should be a sobering check for all legislators about the reality of service provision.

As a vulnerable group in society, a lack of adequate service provision is particularly detrimental for the Traveller community. As we have all highlighted, members of the Traveller community are less likely than average to reach out for help with their mental health. Forgive me for ad libbing, but I heard a suggestion last week of integrating services for the Traveller and settled communities. That will not work. We need to train people in the Traveller community in how to prevent suicide, offer therapy and look after their own. We have gained a reputation for being inaccessible, not compassionate; therefore, this is the only way we can start taking that small first step.

The committee will rightly be concerned with addressing the stigma and other barriers that create this disconnect, but all efforts will be for nothing if the services are not available when someone looks for them. There was the "Let Someone Know" advert, but once we let someone know, what then? There are no services to follow up. Let us consider, for example, the lack of consultant child psychiatrists in child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, in Wexford in the past year. A lady is present who has spoken about losing eight people in her family to suicide. People have been urged to reach out and look for help, but they have not been rewarded by the provision of support or even access to the inadequately staffed support services. This apathy is not just for the Traveller community. It is for all children.

The Joint Committee on the Future of Mental Health Care devised good solutions and suggestions on how to help the Traveller community. We acknowledged that there was a crisis in the Traveller community and knew the statistics, but let me be brutal. I am afraid that the report of the Joint Committee on Key Issues affecting the Traveller Community will be added to the 12,000 other reports that are gathering dust in this organisation. Someone needs to do something different. We will have a new Government in a few months' time. We do not know who the Taoiseach will be, but I appeal to that person to nominate someone from the Traveller community to the Seanad in order that we can have someone on the inside who will devote his or her term to tackling the problems of the Traveller community.

I am sorry for always being so cynical.

This committee may end up like the Joint Committee on Future of Mental Health Care in terms of the promise that it would be allowed to continue its work and it not having done diddly squat for a year now. The Taoiseach promised that he would allow that committee to continue. Where is it at? We have to stop kicking the can down the road because every time we kick it an inch someone else has died. I call on the Government to not only prioritise implementation of some of the suggestions that we have made over the years in respect of the Traveller community but to make mental health a priority. If we do not have our mental health, we have nothing.

I apologise for going off script, but I am pretty passionate about this issue. I am concerned that the eyes of Government glaze when it comes to mental health, children and the Traveller community.