Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity of speaking to the motion and I commend Sinn Féin on bringing it forward. There is not a family in Ireland that has not been touched by this issue or that does not have someone close to them who has a mental health issue. The problem is not confined to one area. All Deputies are echoing the need for mental health services. Back bench Deputies are saying that this 24-7 crisis intervention team is needed. As politicians, we get telephone calls perhaps on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday night. Every Member in this House tries to do their best for people, but our hands are tied. What can we say to a person? We can bring them to an accident and emergency department where they may have to wait three, four or five hours to see a doctor, but given the state those people are in, they lose hope. They get fed up waiting. They do not have the patience for it. In fairness, the system in place is not right. Roscommon hospital can bring people in directly for assessment. That should be the case throughout the country. We should not have people waiting four and five hours to be seen.

Yesterday, I got a telephone call from a person I know in the Minister of State's own county who was in a bad state. We rang, e-mailed and got talking to people, but there was nobody who would say it was their job. Everyone we spoke to said it was not their job. I wanted somebody to call to a person's house to talk to them and encourage them to try to get help but, unfortunately, it was the same story. They were told to go to the hospital and wait for hours.

A review of mental health services in the Roscommon area is due but it is being kicked down the road, so to speak. I ask the Minister of State not to keep kicking it down the road. Regardless of whether it contains bad stuff, she should get it out there because the only way we will solve this problem is to put it in the public domain in order that we can talk about it and try to solve it. The sad reality is that every Deputy in this House is interested in trying to solve this problem. We have three or four debates in this House but from what I can see, nothing is improving.

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