Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The most frustrating part of the news announced last week was that the budget for mental health services had been raided, which came as no real surprise. Mental health services has been the poor cousin of the health sector for years. This move indicates that the outgoing Government had no interest in changing that. It was disappointing to hear the Minister for Health, Deputy Varadkar, officials in his Department and the HSE play down the fact that the €12 million earmarked for mental health service recruitment is to be spent elsewhere. The Minister referred to pitching one area of the health service against the other. The diversion of the €12 million to another area is the Minister for Health pitching one part of the health service against the other. We all want to see investment in our health services but the diversion of this funding, and the justification for it from the other side of the House, is shameful and wrong and it should be reversed now.

It was even more disappointing to hear the HSE's National Director of Mental Health, Ms Anne O'Connor, say last night on television that the money had been returned because she could not find staff to recruit. She made the claim that health care professionals travel and said, "That is just the way it is". For the director of mental health services in this country to make such comments about our mental health services and to say that she could not spend the money is also shameful. It is wrong that the director of a policy area in our health service would make those comments at a time of mental health crisis in this country. Her responses showed no understanding of the real problem in this area.

During the debate last week on health services I raised the issue of staffing levels in the health area. Young nurses and doctors are being driven out of our health care system because the pay and conditions on offer are not good enough. Hospitals in London, Sydney and elsewhere are benefiting from Ireland's young doctors and nurses. Data I received in response to a Parliamentary Question which I tabled last week shows that the recent recruitment campaign by the Minister and Government was a failure in terms of their having only successfully recruited 83 of the 500 staff sought. That campaign did not work. We need to come up with innovative ways of bringing our lost generation of health care professionals home.

The question that must be asked is why if the €12 million could not be spent on recruitment it was not invested in mental health services such as allied health professionals, psychologists, community based therapists and so on. We all know that when a person presents at an accident and emergency department he or she will see a psychiatrist or be treated by the rapid care team but that it is usually six months later before that person receives the intervention required. Six months is too long. It is wrong to risk leaving a person with an acute difficulty in his or her life in that position. The €12 million concerned should have been spent on filling the gap in that area. The issue for allied health professionals, psychiatrists and community health teams is the haemorrhaging of services such that they cannot make the necessary interventions at community level.

Stigma around this topic, even in 2016, remains a major issue. The only way to challenge this is by tackling the problem head-on. As a society we need to become comfortable with talking about mental health. As legislators, we have a responsibility to promote, debate and create a culture where not being okay is okay. I was impressed by the efforts of singer, Niall Breslin, and others, in championing the importance of good mental health. Equally impressive is the recent video by Doug Leddin which went viral and explained how young people feeling unwell have a tendency to put on a show and pretend that all is okay. Doug also points out in the video that suicide is well documented but not well discussed. This is a challenge we face. He also referred to the fact that last year more people lost their lives through suicide than road deaths. We are all well aware of road safety campaigns but how many of us would speak so openly about mental health?

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