Mr. Martin Rogan:

That point is very well made and it is very important where we put this resource. We need to frontload it and to be very careful because for the whole population we have had this extraordinarily unique experience. It has been a time of uncertainty and is a space that we have never been in before. We have all also been learning our way across this path. We need to frontload this to keep people well and in community, in their routines and in employment. We know that unemployment is perhaps one of the most dangerous occupations to have. In Ireland we have seen this in very recent memory, where Irish people remember the very corrosive effects that unemployment and recession have had and the losses and tragedy associated with that. We know what not to do.

A whole series of measures are very important across quality of life, people’s health and that people have access to services that are informal and easily accessible, be that in the community and voluntary sector, in primary care, or indeed in mental health services. These need to be properly resourced and to be in a position to respond to people in a very constructive and creative way with a series of choices that are comfortable to the individual. With Sharing the Vision: A Mental Health Policy for Everyone, we have a very strong outline on how we can do this. It is about outcomes and what our objectives are. As a community, what is it that we wish to see so that everybody can live a full life and people can come in from the margins? We have seen people who have rejoined our country in recent years and who have come back from overseas. We have migrants joining us, we have had members of the Travelling community and we have had people living in precarious situations in homelessness. We can revisit these things because we know that these are damaging not just to our physical health but also to our mental health.

It is unedifying for all of us if any of our fellow citizens live like this. This is like what the Americans used to say, which is that nobody should be left behind. We need to have systems in place in our educational establishments and in our workplaces that are conducive and supportive to people’s mental health, in recognising that people have sometimes been traumatised by this experience, and have been seriously unsettled. The uncertainty has had a corrosive effect.

We need to be patient, a little kind, and mindful of people’s experiences. Family members have often struggled over the last number of months trying to do their day job by Zoom together with homeschooling children at the same time. This has been extraordinarily stressful and there is a recognition of that.

Employers have been very good at stepping forward and most have been responsible in that space, although not all unfortunately. We need to be alert to that piece as well. Across all of our community, we need to mobilise and be extra alert. We have all been through a tough time and we need support, affirmation and acknowledgement from our colleagues around us and our neighbours, which has been a really powerful learning in all of this. We could almost consider Covid as something of a dress rehearsal when it comes to addressing some of the huge issues facing our society in terms of the economy, unemployment and climate change. We have demonstrated what we can do when we pull together and if we can mobilise that attitude again in the coming months, we could be unstoppable.