Tom Neville (Limerick County, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Before I speak, I am mindful of the sensitivities of visitors and Members who may have been directly affected by mental health issues. We must all be aware of that.

I welcome the establishment of the national task force on youth and mental health in researching how best to introduce and teach resilience and coping mechanisms in children and young people to allow them to develop such mechanisms over their lifetimes.

Changes have taken place in the past decade. Following the introduction of A Vision for Change in 2006, I recall campaigning in several elections in which we spoke directly to people on the doorsteps about mental health and provided pamphlets. Ireland was a different place then and I would get funny looks from those who answered the door when I brought it up. People did not want to talk about it. I welcome that people today bring it out into the open and speak about it. I welcome also that Deputies speak about it because it is not so long ago in this House that they did not, and that was the bottom line.

The stigma needs to be combatted. I have always said this. We had a discussion on mental health at the Fine Gael think-in and we had some thought leaders speak to us. One thing I picked up from the latter is that stigma kills and that we need to combat it. That is a major issue.

I want to bring in some newer avenues to help with mental health, one of which would be through the creative arts and the artistic approach which are quite therapeutic and allow a person to go beyond himself or herself. I would also include the use of data analytics. I know some form of analytics have been put forward in recent years, particularly in the corporate world, to measure work stress, why people are missing work and to measure trauma within work. There is no reason that cannot be diversified to the health sector as well.

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