Dan Neville (Limerick West, Fine Gael)

I move amendment No. 3:

In page 11, line 31, to delete "(Insanity)" and substitute "(Mental Disorder)".

We discussed this on Committee Stage as well. The legislation is called the Criminal Law (Insanity) Bill and I have difficulty with the word "Insanity" being used as a title. Language is very important in terms of the way we look at mental illness and those who suffer mental ill health. The stigma surrounding the whole area of mental illness is something which the Minister of State is very concerned about, and I compliment him on the sea change initiative he has taken. I believe our society has cruelly failed many who are suffering from mental illness.

This failure has a direct involvement in suicide as well because people do not seek help as a result of the stigma. We do not get the same pressure in relation to the psychiatric services and the need to resource this area as we do with regard to other social difficulties. As politicians we are faced, day in day out, with the need to resource the general health services, but rarely is the political system challenged about the resources it allocates to mental health. Those who suffer from mental illness feel stigmatised by these attitudes and views from a time when psychiatry was not as well developed as it is today, and we must change those views.

We are dealing in this legislation with only a very small percentage of patients, but there is a belief that 50% of people are in that category, which of course is ridiculous. However, that is unfortunately the opinion of the general public in many instances. As we have often said here, one in four persons suffers a psychiatric illness at some time in their life and such people are stigmatised by language; I want to highlight this aspect. Using such words as "lunatic", "being mad", "deranged", "crazy", "daft", "barmy", "crack-brained", "nut cases", etc., reinforces such prejudices and the misunderstandings many people have about mental illness.

The stereotyping of mentally ill patients allows fun to continue to be made of people who are suffering and facilitates continued discrimination. We must rise above this type of abuse of language and attitudes. Those in leadership positions must make every attempt to educate people who do not understand the pain of mental illness. Only then will people come forward, admit the pain of the illness and seek help, similar to mainstream help in the general health service. Only then will we demand action from Government to acknowledge the scandal of the neglect of the psychiatric services. Until there is a watershed change of societal attitudes, many will hide their illnesses because no one wants to be referred to as "crazy". The word "insanity" also has connotations of stigmatisation. It is a word historically used when institutions were known as hospitals for the mentally ill or mental asylums, in which straitjackets and various other types of approaches were used. We have advanced from that and the Bill should recognise that the word "insanity" is not appropriate. The proposal put forward by Deputy Lynch and I seeks to amend the Title of the Criminal Law (Insanity) Bill 2010 to read Criminal Law (Mental Disorder) Bill 2010.

I take this opportunity to highlight the approach of See Change, the National Mental Health Stigma Reduction Partnership, which was launched by the Minister of State but which is not getting the attention it deserves by the media or public general, although the public in general may not be aware of it, which is the problem. We must raise awareness of this issue. That is the challenge facing us in terms of mental illness and the provision of mental health services. See Change states that while anyone might experience a mental health problem at some in life, many of us are frightened of the idea of mental health problems. The various diagnostic titles such as psychosis, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression are seen as lifelong labels which mark a person as different from the rest of society. The stigma and discrimination associated with significant mental health problems is for some people almost as difficult to manage as the experience of being unwell.

A recent study on mental health attitudes in Ireland found that while 94% of people in Ireland believe mental health problems can affect anyone, only one in two would not want anyone to know if they had a mental illness. There are people who say that one cannot change attitudes to mental illness but I do not believe that. While the position in this regard has changed in recent decades it has only marginally changed. In this regard, I always give two examples of where one can change attitudes in terms of discrimination. We changed attitudes to tuberculosis in the 1940s, at which time no one would visit the house of a person who had TB and families of persons with TB were ignored and stigmatised. Cancer is no longer the big "C". One can have cancer of the throat or skin and so on. We campaign for and demand services for cancer. I recall, as I am sure does the Minister of State, when cancer was referred to as the big "C". It was almost the unmentionable.

See this speech in context