Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

We again propose to incorporate the covenant in the Constitution, something we should have done a long time ago. The Labour Party introduced two Private Members' Bills which proposed to do the same thing as Deputy Pringle's Bill, one by Ruairí Quinn in 2000 and a second more recent one by the then Deputy and now Senator Kevin Humphreys in 2012. The Labour Party voted against the Bill in 2015, and it will be interesting to see how it votes this time.

On the previous occasion Deputy Pringle discussed the Bill in the Dáil in May 2015, the Labour Party, speaking on behalf of the Government, argued there was no need to incorporate the covenant because we had the appropriate policies in place. It would say that. According to figures from the Dublin Region Homeless Executive, in May 2015, 1,122 children were homeless in Dublin and 677 adults with children were homeless. In January 2016, 1,570 children were homeless in Dublin and 1,042 adults with children were homeless. The policies of the Labour Party and Fine Gael Government obviously contributed to the problem. In January 2017, 1,353 adults with dependent children were homeless and 2,046 children were homeless. Since we last discussed the Bill in the Dáil the number of homeless in Dublin has almost doubled. Will the Government's response be different today? Will it state it has allocated resources and implemented the right policies? The last time those claims and reassurances came from Government benches they were empty, and they have not been supported by reality. We will not accept the assurances of empty promises now. This is just the housing crisis.

Mental health services are a disaster in this country and we also speak about a mental health crisis. The situation in Wexford is particularly bad. Our suicide rate is almost double the national average. If any child or adolescent in south Wexford reports to a mental health service with an emergency he or she will not be seen by anyone or receive any treatment if the child psychologist is on holiday. The HSE knows for months in advance when these holidays are due to fall, but it does not send someone to cover the position. This has led to children who had expressed a wish to take their own lives simply being sent home or sometimes kept on a ward in a general hospital in extreme distress for days on end while nurses do their best to calm them down. This is a violation of the child's human rights.

Add to this the simple fact the State refuses to provide adequate talking therapies for children and adolescents and instead is busy prescribing drugs to them by the bucket load. As the executive clinical director for community healthcare organisation, CHO, area 5 explained to one of my staff at a meeting in November, there is no point talking to the mentally ill, as he calls people with mental health issues, as the most scientific approach to treat mental illness is to prescribe medication, he argued. The best results internationally on mental health are in countries where people are moving away from the medicalised model of care and towards empowering people to make decisions about how their care proceeds. Autonomy is a human rights issue and the bedrock of self-respect. What hope do people in distress have when those running the show in Ireland hold views that would be out of place in the 18th century? Here, we come at mental health issues from a biological perspective. We label people with so-called illnesses, which are nothing more than different collections of outward behaviours given names. The vulnerability stress model which the HSE works with presupposes people with mental health issues have a biological disposition towards certain types of so-called mental illnesses. This is just a theory which is impossible to prove. It just presumes people are born with defects even when no one really knows what a healthy mind should even look like. Once diagnosed, people and families must suffer the stigma associated with being labelled biologically defective.

Mental health care is a human rights issue. Housing is a human rights issue. People should have legal recourse surrounding these areas and the Bill would allow this. There is a precedent. We are in the dark ages when it comes to caring for the vulnerable and we still do not do accountability in this country. Is this what the Government is really scared of, justice for those who suffer at the hands of the State? That is what it certainly looks like. The Government states it has the appropriate policies in place and is allocating resources in the right places. This is not the reality. We are speaking about a mental health crisis and a housing crisis. We know the problems are getting worse, inequality is rising, and people are suffering and these problems are connected. Deputy Pringle's Bill would enshrine the protection of people who need the help of the State. The Bill would put a responsibility on the State and prevent it from reneging on looking after those who most need its help. This is why the Bill should be passed. I commend Deputy Pringle for tabling it once again.

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