Paudge Connolly (Cavan-Monaghan, Independent)

I seek the adjournment of the Dáil under Standing Order 31 to raise a matter of national importance, namely, the report A Vision for Change on the future of mental health services in Ireland and its proposal to close and sell all remaining psychiatric hospitals and adjacent land attached to them; the proposal to dispose of St. Davnet's Hospital, Monaghan, and a wide variety of services in the county; the proposed replacement of current admission units by institutional-type 50-bed admission units to be restricted to one for each 300,000 of the population, which will have major consequences in rural Ireland for psychiatric admission units, its limitation of psychiatric day hospitals to one per 300,000 of the population, with all the difficulties it will create for psychiatric day patients in rural Ireland who generally have no form of personal or public transport available to them; to discuss the policy of selling State assets and pursuing a rental policy; and the report's implications for the future of mental health services in Cavan and Monaghan.

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