Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I only can speak for myself. It is not for me to cast my eye over the history of the State's treatment of people. As I have acknowledged, this is a crisis. I am happy to acknowledge that again, but that does not give me or anybody in this room any comfort whatsoever. The State has responded to suicide overall with the establishment of the National Office of Suicide Prevention and Mr. John Meehan, head of the office, will talk in more detail about the issues. The funding of his office has grown exponentially in the past number of years. I am not saying this defensively; it is a matter of fact.

As I said at the outset, I do not have a monopoly of wisdom on how to deal with this issue and a whole-of-society approach is needed. That is the reason it has been tasked for a whole-of-Government report led by the Department of Justice and Equality, which is the lead agent in driving issues affecting Travellers. Mental health is more of a symptom of the malaise of the treatment of Travellers than itself being an issue. There are developments all of the time. For example, the online space and crisis text line is being developed as we speak and we hope it will be available in a number of weeks. Crisis Text Line has had phenomenal success throughout the world, giving people access to support and help at a time of dire need and preventing suicide. We are developing a number of initiatives and will continue to develop the service. I recognise that we could be more culturally sensitive and aware in the development of the crisis text line and have a look at how we could tailor it more to the needs of Travellers before the end of this year.