Ms Gr?inne Loughran:

Deputy Lahart spoke about mental health difficulties beginning in old age. This is something that causes older people significant difficulty because the symptoms of mental health difficulties are often different when people older as opposed to when they are younger. There is not significant awareness around that. Increased headaches and arthritic pain can be the symptoms of depression in older age, but this is not recognised. The symptoms are not really discussed. They are not considered in terms of mental health awareness campaigns or raising awareness around mental health difficulties.

Sharing the Vision contains a commitment in respect of the development and implementation of a range of actions designed to achieve the goals of the national positive ageing strategy for the mental health of older people, but there is nothing on reducing stigma or increasing awareness of those symptoms or education around mental health for older people. There is nothing in the context of fully capturing and addressing the level of untreated mental illness among older people or assessing the barriers, of which there are many, that older people experience in accessing mental health supports. There is everything from things like mobility, accessing digital supports, self-stigma and ageism. There is consistent evidence that mental health clinicians are less willing to work with older adults and they have negative assumptions about the effectiveness of psychotherapy. That is from a piece written by Mr. Brian Harvey for the Irish Senior Citizens Parliament in 2022. This is a matter of concern because psychological therapies can be more effective for older people than for those of working age. Ageism is another significant difficulty. For older people experiencing mental health challenges for the first time, a number of barriers can be in place to accessing the relevant supports.