John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)

I will be brief. I compliment the Minister on his work in this area to date, the sincere way he is approaching the issue of suicide and his commitment to the task. I listened carefully to Deputy Neville's contribution to the debate, and I listened to his comments outside it, and he is to be complimented on leading the campaign on this issue. Far too many families are affected by suicide.

The services must be expanded rapidly and must include funding, not just for community care beyond the psychiatric hospitals but also in bringing in expertise from outside the country and making it available to those who need it. Families with relatives suffering from depression and threatening suicide must be able to find the type of care needed for that family member. Such care must be made available because those families should not have to fight with the authorities to get the services they need.

On a local issue, I ask the Minister to re-examine the Ryan case in St. Canice's Hospital. It involves a death that occurred unnecessarily in the hospital some years ago. The family has continued to try to get the case reopened and properly investigated. I ask the Minister to examine that issue and deal with it. Another family is suffering trauma and sadness and is unable to let go because death was caused by suicide and the family believes questions need to be answered.

Dr. Harding Price was struck off by the Privy Council in England but he is able to practise in this country. He was employed by the South Eastern Health Board and there are many cases in that area where questions need to be answered. Those families are affected by the decision taken, which cannot be explained as he is barred from any kind of practice in the UK. The documentation is available on the Internet and must be read to be believed, yet the authorities here have sanctioned the resumption of his practice while cases are still unresolved in the south east. These cases relate to family members touched by deep depression, with the threat of suicide. That is incredible and I have written a letter to the Minister asking her to reopen the case to see if the suspension can be continued and if the decision of the Medical Council can be overturned, or at least suspended until a further investigation takes place. Given the problems, we cannot afford this type of approach, which falls short of best practice, within our system.

As the Deputy mentioned there is a need for a wider debate encompassing the use of drugs and alcohol. The greatest curse I see in my clinic every week is the effects of drug and alcohol abuse on the people abusing, their families and their extended families, and the difficulties in convincing the current structures within our psychiatric services to deal with them, to reach out and be proactive in support for these families in the home, or to take them in and deal with them in a hospital setting.

In Kilkenny a multi-million euro, state-of-the-art hospital was recently opened. We need to build the appropriate staffing levels, skills and qualification around that to ensure we can deal with this issue. The Minister should not be shy in asking the Government to put money into projects that deal with this issue. For far too many years the mental health services have not received a proportionate amount of the billions of euro we have invested in the health services.

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