David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I wish my colleagues well in their important work. I worked for quite a number of years as a guidance counsellor in a second level school and I also did a lot of training in counselling with the Cork social and health education project, so I have a personal interest in mental health.

As others have already said, schools have a significant role to play in this regard. I suggest that guidance counsellors, in particular, have a fairly large role to play. The power of a significant adult in the life of a young person cannot be under-estimated. It is important to recognise that anybody - a parent, an uncle, an aunt, a teacher or a counsellor - can be a significant adult.

I am great believer in the role of youth services. We should be supporting Foróige, Youth Work Ireland and other youth services, including the guides and the cubs, because they perform a huge function out there. Quite often, a trained youth worker can identify a young person who is under pressure or stress and intervene to help him or her to get counselling or any other assistance that may be required. The presence of a captive audience of children who might not want to be there, or who might be embarrassed, can sometimes make programmes in schools somewhat artificial. Out-of-school informal education through youth services is very powerful and is something we should further develop. The self-esteem of young people who are involved in sport and physical activity can be improved by the camaraderie and teamwork involved in such endeavours. Similarly, we should encourage and help those involved with the President's award, Gaisce.

We must not forget that alcohol can play a major part in this whole area. Alcohol is a depressant, as we know. Unfortunately, it is a factor for many of the people I come across who are affected by mental illness. Many, although not all, of those who commit suicide are drunk or hungover prior to doing so. I would have a big worry and concern about the role of alcohol in this regard.

Loneliness can play a big part as people get older and are sometimes on their own. That is why we should be supporting and encouraging organisations such as Men's Sheds, which can often encounter difficulties in finding premises and places to carry out their work. It is said that men often help each other elbow to elbow or side by side. They can talk when they are working on something together. I think women can build up stronger networks, which is a strength. Men often find it difficult on their own. I think that is an area we need to focus on.

I agree with Deputy Ó Cuív that mental health is a continuum. We are all on that continuum. Some of us are strong at times. Every one of us can go down the other side when we are under pressure. Politicians, in particular, can be very vulnerable. We can get a lot of abuse. It is hard to take. It can be personal. I detect far more camaraderie in this Dáil. There is not as much aggression as there was in previous Dáileanna. I think we need to work together. That is happening more and more now. We are listening to each other a little better. Society needs to try to cut down on the aggression. The media have a role to play in this regard. When politicians are in the media, it can be gruelling to deal with people who want to catch us out and say "gotcha". That seems to be the approach. Rather than trying to find out what the issues are and having a proper discussion on them, some people prefer to take the "gotcha" route. I ask the media to move away from that. People need to try to move away from that. We need to focus on the positive rather than on the negative.

William Glasser, who was involved in reality therapy some years ago, spoke about four areas of life that we should be strong on. He spoke about the need to love and be loved, which is quite important for everybody. If one is missing that, one is in trouble. He also said we have a need for power. This involves feeling worthwhile and achieving things. Glasser's other two needs were the need for freedom and independence and the need to have fun. He maintained that a person who was not having those four needs met was in trouble. There are many different approaches to this issue. Adler looked at the outcome of behaviour as a means of explaining why someone behaves in a certain way. I could go on. Durkheim was concerned about anomieand withdrawal from society. There are many approaches to this issue. As someone said earlier, counselling and talking therapies are very important. Rather than going for the bottle and the pill all the time, it is crucially important to build self-esteem, self-worth and self-image.

As I have responsibility for equality and integration in my new job, I am conscious that mental health issues can feature strongly in debates on inequality and integration. As we have seen, some of those coming here from abroad are experiencing trauma as a result of the unspeakable things they have seen and gone through. Already this week, it has been reported that up to 900 people have drowned in the Mediterranean. That is two 747s. We are complaining about things here when these people are facing such trauma.

The high rate of mental health issues facing members of the Traveller community is of particular concern to me. My Department is currently undertaking a three-phase consultation process with a view to putting a new Traveller and Roma inclusion strategy in place. This will involve the development and implementation of a range of cross-cutting policy matters in order to address the issues facing the Traveller and Roma communities. One of the key issues to have emerged so far from the public consultation on the draft strategy is the high rate of mental health problems experienced by members of the Traveller community. In 2010, the all-Ireland Traveller health study showed that the suicide rate among Traveller men is seven times higher than the rate among men in the national population. The reasons for this are multifaceted. When the strategy is completed, it will address those mental health issues by way of specific actions to be implemented on a cross-departmental basis.

I would like to speak about the positive side of these matters as well. When I attended the Traveller Pride awards earlier today, I was impressed, inspired and moved by the array of wonderful skill, talent and dedication in the Traveller community. It was clear to me that Travellers have huge potential to contribute fully to Ireland if the barriers to their participation in society could be removed. The overall winner at today's awards was a young lad of 14 - an amazing guy - who is a world handball champion. I also met four young lads from Skibbereen who are going to do very well after making an absolutely fabulous model of one of the old Traveller barrel wagons and then deciding to mass-produce such wagons in flat packs to sell them. They cannot keep up with the orders. It is amazing. The music played at today's event was absolutely inspiring. Finbar Furey was there. There is a great deal of work to be done in the Traveller community with respect to mental health. Any group that is marginalised like that will have problems.

There is a huge amount of work to be done in this area. I wish my colleagues well in their work. We can make an awful lot of progress. We can start here in this House by being a bit kinder to each other. It does not cost anything to be nice. It does not cost anything to listen to people. Deputies should engage with people in a positive way rather than trying to put them down all the time. If we start by adopting such an attitude here, maybe that can permeate outside. Perhaps I am being naive or innocent but we should have a go. I am already detecting or sensing that the new Members who have come into this Dáil, and some of the older Members, are inclined to listen. Maybe it is because this is a minority Government. Perhaps we all have to listen now because we do not have what we had in the past. We have to work together for the good of everybody because everybody can contribute in a positive way. I am glad to have been able to speak in this debate.

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