Shane Cassells (Meath West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on mental health. I congratulate my fellow royal county colleague, the Minister of State with responsibility for mental health and older people, Deputy Helen McEntee, on her appointment to ministerial ranks. We may share different political backgrounds but we both had famous uncles who soldiered on the great Meath teams of the 1980s so myself and my family are particularly pleased for her.

I acknowledge the work of the cross-party committee from the previous Dáil which recently staged a very successful and informative launch in Leinster House of the green ribbon campaign and the See Change movement. The contributions by Deputies Ó Caoláin, Troy, Doherty and O'Sullivan were all insightful but more importantly they were all positive. The people who spoke at the launch all spoke positively about mental health well-being and that was very insightful. The guest speakers on the day who addressed their own past problems spoke about the importance of having somebody who will listen and somebody simply caring. Most strikingly, they spoke about the issues around resources and the need for support services because there are times when just kind words are not enough and the services of professionally trained people are required.

Last week, a young lady from Trim contacted me. She has suffered from agoraphobia for the past 15 years and it has become so bad in the past few years that she cannot leave her apartment. She wrote to complain about the lack of help available for herself and others with the illness. She attends mental health services in Trim. She had an appointment in early May for which she had to take Xanax in order to attend. She is allowed only ten tablets a month since the medication is addictive and she hates having to take them. She can only go as far as her neighbour's house without having to take Xanax. At her appointment, she was told that the service would not send someone out to her apartment to help her because it was thought this would enable her. She was told she should go to see a therapist in Trim but she would not be allowed to take that particular medication. The problem is that this person cannot get to the appointments without taking Xanax and even when she does take it, she finds it difficult. She suffers from panic attacks and depression and she is reaching out; she wants to be helped but the system is working against her.

At the beginning of this debate I heard Deputy Josepha Madigan speak about the psychiatric services in the State and say that there are now some top class facilities available. However, in my own county we are on the cusp of losing our 24-7 acute psychiatric unit facility and having it downgraded to a Monday to Friday service which would open during office hours. That is not how real life works but that is what is being proposed with the potential implementation of this measure in July. At the beginning of May, I tabled a parliamentary question to the previous Minister on this matter and I still have not received a response. What does this say of the HSE in how it treats this Dáil with contempt and no regard whatsoever? More importantly, what does it say about how the HSE treats patients in Meath upon whom this decision will impact? Our Lady's Hospital in Navan, as the Minister is very well aware, is under threat across a number of areas in the services it provides and the Save Navan Hospital campaign has done fantastic work in protecting these services. I acknowledge the presence of Deputy Tóibín in the Chamber who is the chairman of that campaign and I also acknowledge the exceptional work of Dr. Ruairí Hanley on that campaign. However, the proposed downgrading of the acute psychiatric facility needs to be addressed. It deserves and demands an immediate response and I hope the Minister of State will address it in the House this evening. I sincerely hope that as a Meath woman she will intervene to attain the 24-7 facility and I hope that having three Ministers in Meath will carry some weight in fighting this decision.

I spoke yesterday with Christopher Rennicks, the chairman of the Meath River Rescue service. It is a voluntary organisation which is over 20 years' old. It has, unfortunately, seen its services required more and more in recent times. We do not want to see these services more in demand. We do not want a scenario where a person presents in Navan outside of office hours and finds acute psychiatric facilities are not available. There is little point in Deputies making speeches in this Dáil Chamber about mental health if there is no commitment to the resources required. I am appealing to the Minister, on behalf of the hospital campaign, and more importantly on behalf of the patients who use the facility, to interject and to ensure the retention of that facility on a 24-7 basis.

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