Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I am not a member of this committee but I came today as an observer. My brief within Leinster House is on mental health, about which I am very passionate. I worry about one or two things but first I congratulate the witnesses on their honesty and frankness. We need to know these things so we can react. It aggrieves me why disability issues always have to come under the HSE and Senator Dolan touched on this. These people are not sick people and the matter is about equality. This is my beef, regardless of who is in power. Governments have a responsibility to treat everybody equally and they do not. In my own experience in the mental health side of things people who are labelled, for example, as disabled, should never be labelled in that way. It stigmatises them straight away and puts them under pressure. When a person is not getting equality it is bound to affect his or her mental health. I shall give the committee a perfect, simple example of this. Some years ago in my town we repaired and put down some new footpaths. We did our research beforehand. We had not realised the difficulties until we received a submission from a wheelchair user, who was related to me, and he gave his rendition of how difficult it was for him to go from one side of the town to the other and to do simple things like crossing the road to the post office. When we got the information back it was amazing. The project went on to win a mobility award. My point is that the honesty of the witnesses does not go unheard; we do take things back. I have learned so much just from listening to the representatives today. I must congratulate them, but my biggest gripe - and my own personal view - is that the HSE should have nothing to do with disability services. There is a convention on human rights for people with disabilities and there are other laws that should be implemented. I wish the representatives the very best of luck. I shall return and do my homework to see what I can do in order to be of benefit to them. I congratulate them on their work.