Ms Ber Grogan:

In preparing for today, I saw the OECD has released the Health at a Glance for 2021. It indicates that mental health and cancer are two areas where a delay in healthcare can have particularly adverse health effects. We also know that having a mental health difficulty increases the risk of dying by suicide. It is one of the things around the national clinical programme on self-harm and suicide related ideation. There is a programme there but for me one of the big things that jumped out was that there were more than 11,000 incidents of self-harm where the person ended up in an emergency department. It also estimated that in the community there were around 60,000 incidents of self-harm. It comes back to early intervention and prevention. We are starting to collect this data and to join the dots and talk to each other.

Sharing the Vision also has the cross-departmental aspect to it. It is about talking to each other and working together. It is an exciting time. The subcommittee doing this work is such a sea change and a cultural change. This is long-awaited, overdue legislation. I echo Ms Coyle's thanks. We have also had meetings with the Department officials, the Minister and the HSE. There is a great sense of wanting to get the best person-centred human rights combined legislation over the line. Best of luck to everyone with it.