Dan Neville (Limerick West, Fine Gael)

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for allowing me to raise this issue. I plead for the life of Emer Carroll and many others like her who are suicidal and who have been discharged from hospital because of a lack of facilities to deal with them. I also wish to highlight the broader issue of the neglect of those who are suicidal.

Emer suffers from an eating disorder and now weighs just six stone. She has made seven suicide attempts and feels her life is worth nothing. She wants assistance. She has stated:

I want help, I don't want to be like this anymore. But because I am not eating, my brain is just telling me I don't want to live anymore and that I have no worth. I don't want to hurt my family, but I feel so bad that my brain just tells me they'd be better off if I was dead. And the fact I feel like this is not helped by the lack of treatment that is available to me. They told me they were discharging me from Tallaght because they do not have the facilities to treat eating disorders.

Funding has been made available in Tallaght Hospital by the National Office for Suicide Prevention for a suicide prevention nurse. Although the money is available, the Health Service Executive prevented the hospital from taking on a nurse because of the embargo on staff recruitment. This is nothing to do with controlling the overspend by the Health Service Executive. The money is available, yet the Health Service Executive is allowing a person like Emer Carroll to probably die because it will not allow the recruitment of a suicide prevention nurse.

Emer's father said that as far as he is concerned, this is tantamount to murder. I will not comment on that other than to say it is a sign of how upset the family is about the issue. This is similar to the experience of so many families around the country. I speak with people every week who are put under unbelievable pressure because members of their families who are suicidal are not getting the services they require. Many of them have attended funerals that could have been prevented if the recommendations of the various reports were implemented, including last year's report of the joint Oireachtas committee that has been totally ignored.

I was informed today by the Minister of State at the Department of Health and Children, Deputy Devins, that we are spending only 7.7% of the total health budget on mental health services, yet one in four people suffer from a psychiatric illness that will require intervention at some stage in life.

I do not expect any great answer on this matter from the Minister of State, Deputy Hoctor, because I have not received any in the 18 years I have spent campaigning on this issue. I urge her to think of Emer Carroll who suffers from anorexia nervosa, who has attempted to take her life seven times, who went for help to Tallaght Hospital only to be told the facilities were not available to help her because the Health Service Executive prevented the resources being expended for bureaucratic reasons.

I have a copy of Healthmatters, a Health Service Executive publication. It contains 36 pages of information but only one small article is devoted to mental health.

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