Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The vision of A Vision for Change was never realised, although it was Government policy for five years under Fianna Fáil and further five years under Fine Gael. If the Minister of State talks to any person working in our mental health services, they will tell her the goals that were set out within A Vision for Change were not only not reached, they were not even nearly reached. All that happened is that the big psychiatric hospitals were closed but the community services that were promised were never put in place. I represented people working in the mental health services for years and we watched closure after closure and repeated failures by successive Governments, which did not put in the community care that is so essential.

We do not need another report, we need to have concrete action in terms of how mental health services are going to be protected into the future. In particular, we need to refer to the fact staffing levels are at 23% below what is needed. The Minister of State will be aware targets were set in A Vision for Change but none of those targets were reached in any discernible way. With regard to the review and everything else that will take place, will there be ring-fenced funding and if so, will that be raided like the Government raided it the last time? Can we have confidence that we will see a priority and focus on mental health?

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