Colm Keaveney (Galway East, Labour)

I thank some of the Members opposite for their contribution on this motion. Members on all sides of the House have strong shared concerns in this area. It is also a shared concern that the one in four people is affected by mental health issues. There go I but for the grace of God. It is important that this Dáil takes whatever action is necessary to deliver critically important services within the community.

I support and applaud the Minister's commitment with regard to the policy in the programme for Government. It is the intention of this Government to break the perception that mental health services can only be delivered within an institutional environment of care. We must tackle that but we must also ensure that we adequately resource the delivery of community based services and try to break from the perception that the only quality delivery can be done through the State agencies or the Health Service Executive.

We must acknowledge the great work done by the voluntary and community sector in that regard. I refer in particular to Outhouse, a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community resource centre based in Dublin whose primary objective is to ensure that it can support clients of services with mental health issues. Outhouse is a front-line service provider which provides a safe space where people can get information, support, organise and build capacity to act. It is often the first point of contact for LGBT service users to find a safe space where they can talk about their concerns regarding emotional isolation, coming out, homelessness, alcohol and substance misuse and abuse, self-harm and suicide. When I refer to community it is that type of model that we must extend above and beyond our effort to address the scourge and the great stealer that we know as mental health illness.

The current work as indicated to me in my discussions with representatives of Outhouse today involves a minimum investment on behalf of the State where often life-saving services can be delivered through volunteers and peers who can provide support and deliver a front-line service to what we would consider are marginalised people within our society.

I welcome the great work of organisations such as Outhouse which refers its work across the sector in terms of the Garda gay liaison officers, the Public Interest Law Alliance, the HSE social inclusion and HSE mental health nurses within the community. We must endeavour to work with and support those type of partnerships to ensure we deliver modern public services that deal with the emergence of mental health issues within that community. There are great demands to ensure we increase resources to this community because the reality is that Irish society must deal with the stigma of mental health issues and the mental health issues associated with the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.

In future I would like to see organisations dedicated to mental health supported under the provisions of the proposed Government legislation. In that regard there is a commitment in the programme for Government to retain and ring-fence spending under A Vision for Change, which provides for an additional ring-fenced €35 million annually from within the health service budget. That is important in terms of sending out the signal that in austere times this Government is serious about debunking the notion that we do not wear the issue of mental health on our sleeves. We are proud to associate ourselves with this issue. It is not an issue we want to sweep under the carpet but one in which we want to invest to deliver critically important services to vulnerable people in society.

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the motion. It is important for us as a Government to listen to what the Opposition has to say in this regard because there are some valid proposals in this area to which we must give serious consideration.

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