Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)

I commend Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan on putting forward this motion. This could not be a bigger issue. One quarter of the population are affected at some time by mental health issues. We have all been touched by it. I have been touched by the impact of it as have people close to me. Let us consider the link, although not inevitable, to depression and alcohol-related abuse, both of which have been seriously on the rise in recent years. It is important that we address this because it has been a significant problem and, as Deputy Daly has suggested, it has been growing for the past 20 or 30 years but it has dramatically worsened in the past few years.

Without getting into a complex analysis of these difficult issues. it is clear that there is some causal link between unemployment, economic dislocation, poverty and mental health issues. In addition there has been a rise in the levels of suicide, alcohol abuse, other drug abuse and so on. While I have no wish to rehearse the economic debates we have in here every day of the week, this matter cannot be dealt with seriously and no commitment to deal with this issue can be taken seriously unless we address such issues as unemployment urgently. If there are 300,000 or 400,000 people in the country with no hope of work then this problem will get worse. The levels of depression will rise, the rates of suicide will increase, drug and alcohol abuse will get worse and all the costs of all of these problems will get worse as well.

Although we have these problems, we know they can be helped by the provision of mental health services. However, this State is failing to make a priority of the provision of these services. We all acknowledge we should do so but in reality we are not doing it. Some 5% of the health budget in the State goes on mental health services as against a budget of 12% in Northern Ireland and an average of 8% throughout Europe.

A Vision for Change was not a bad document. Nor was it a brilliant document or the last word on this issue but even this document has not been implemented. Some 60% of child psychiatry teams continue to await the funds and the staffing they need. Child mental health protection is of particular importance since it is preventative and it will prevent greater costs and more damage in the long term. School counselling services are practically non-existent and school principals regularly tell parents that there is a quota of only two children per year per school to be seen by the National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS. Up to three quarters of all mental health problems begin between the ages of 12 and 25 years. However, the roll-out of jigsaw walk-in centres for adolescents and young adults is painfully slow with only five centres open at present. There are no functioning child psychiatry teams for children with severe intellectual disabilities, as promised by the A Vision for Change document.

I put it to the Minister that under any universal health insurance, mental health will not be prioritised because it is not a profit-making area. This is the case in such places as the United States. Mental health treatment is manpower-heavy and, therefore, a recruitment embargo disproportionately hits the delivery of mental health services because of its reliance on manpower. The cuts in staffing levels will force more people into dependence on drugs which, as Deputy Daly correctly stated, represents a concerning way to deal with the problem. To deal with the problem effectively, we need more psycho-social interventions, social workers, occupational therapists, psychotherapists and so on. I appeal to the Government to take this issue seriously. The Government acknowledges that we must deal with the issue. I emphasise my disbelief at the fact that the Government has amended the motion. Given all that those in Government have said, I do not understand why they are playing politics with this motion when there is nothing controversial in it and many speakers on the Government side have endorsed it.

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