Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 16 November 2021
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence
Defence Forces Veterans: Discussion
Mr. Ollie O'Connor:
The testimonial, as Mr. Campbell said, is four lines on a small page. Deputy Stanton asked about mental health first aid. I will share this with IUNVA. We have trained in the past year 70 mental health first aiders. We have two veterans support officers and we have clinicians, as we said earlier to Deputy Berry. We have another clinician in Athlone. We find now that particularly the veteran support office who is at the head office, because he reports directly to me, is dealing with everything from suicidal ideation to the payment of an electricity bill. We can handle the electricity bill through the Defence Forces benevolent fund of which we spoke. We are very involved with the Defence Forces benevolent fund. Some of us here are on the executive of the Defence Forces benevolent fund. If things are done right, we can help veterans. However, many veterans do not know about the Defence Forces benevolent fund and that is a problem. Mr. Brennan might talk about this, because I know IUNVA has trained mental health first aiders as well.