Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator Black for the work she does on mental health and chairing this committee. It is important. This is a sub-committee of the larger Oireachtas health committee, but there is so much in the health area and it is good that there is a specific focus within a committee on mental health. I thank the committee for the amount of work it has done. I assure the committee, the organisations, the wider mental health community, the service users, the families, the advocacy organisations, the voluntary and community groups, the mental healthcare professionals and the stakeholders that I am deeply committed to the expansion and enhancement of mental health services across the country, as are the team that works with me, the HSE - which delivers the services - the private service providers and the NGOs.

I am pleased with Sharing the Vision, our new national mental health policy, which provides the framework for the future development of the mental health system. The most important aspect of the policy is that there is a national implementation and monitoring committee, NIMC, that is tasked with driving and overseeing its implementation. It will hold me, the Department and the HSE to account. A sub-committee has been established within the HSE to work and liaise with the NIMC and to drive on the policy. While the policy will be implemented over a ten-year period, many of the short-term recommendations have already been progressed. These include developments in areas such as digital mental health services. We saw very quickly, early in the pandemic, that we had to move to a blended approach. We work very closely with various NGOs. I will mention a couple. MyMind, is an organisation that provides counselling for the HSE free of charge. Every month, it provides 4,000 hours of counselling for the HSE so ability to pay is not an issue. The most important point is that it is providing counselling in 17 different languages. It is extremely important that people with ill mental health, whether they are suffering with anxiety or emotional distress, have access to the supports they need, regardless of their country of origin or language of choice. I was delighted to meet with the MyMind team in Temple Bar recently.

Yesterday, I visited Thurles to meet the new Jigsaw team that is on site there. Jigsaw provides supports for young people between the ages of 12 and 25. We now have 14 different hubs throughout the country with 66% coverage. What really pleases me is the move towards enhanced digital coverage throughout the whole country so that the postcode lottery does not apply and people will be able to access support online wherever they are living. We have a text number - 50808. People can text that number at any time, day or night, and there will be a response. Mymentalhealth.ieis there also to provide a lot of supports. Sometimes I feel that people perhaps do not realise that there are many supports in their communities and that, as a result, they may not avail of them in a timely manner. That is something we will continue to work on to try to get the message out there that it is okay not to be okay, but we must remember that there is help out there. Would you like me to address some specific points, Chairman, or do you want to ask me questions?