Neasa Hourigan (Dublin Central, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for being here. This is an area in which I am very interested and one I hope has been improving in the past couple of years. I have a lot of questions, which I will try to organise into groups.

I start with the questions that are about the interaction of this issue with other issues. For example, reference was made to eating disorders and how they interact with perinatal mental health. For everybody here, one of our questions would be about how good we are at identifying two intersecting issues and providing the right kind of care in such instances. As well as eating disorders, there is the question of how the issue we are discussing may affect particular cohorts, such as Travellers, who might have particular mental health issues. Another example is people living in consistent poverty, who may have particular requirements, as well as members of new communities in Ireland. There was also reference to people with ADHD and those kinds of issues. How do we deal with that? What about issues around disability? I refer not just to women who have disabilities themselves and obviously have tonnes of challenges and mental requirements of their own, but also women who give birth and it becomes obvious immediately, as is my own experience, that a serious disability is in play for the child.

I have included a lot in that question, for which I apologise. It concerns what might be referred to as the co-identification of issues.