Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Browne for tabling this very important Bill on the agenda so we can highlight what needs to be done to help people with mental health issues. I have highlighted this in Kerry many times. We have a wonderful new facility which in June will be complete and fully built for two years but is still not open. Public representatives and many others were taken on a tour of this wonderful building. It is a state-of-the-art building but, sadly, it still has not been opened. We have a Government and five Ministers with responsibility for health. I ask one of them to unblock whatever is causing this building not to be opened. We are not giving people with mental health problems the service they require or looking after them properly when this building is not opened. It is to service all of east Kerry and much of north Kerry.

I also ask that the special purpose building to be built at University Hospital Kerry in Tralee be put in place. We have been asked by the people to provide these facilities. I ask again that the building on St. Margaret's Road, which was completed two years ago and is still not opened, be opened right away. Either we have a Minister for Health who is in charge of health and does something about this, or he is not in charge at all. We were guaranteed money to open it in January but it is still not opened. I am afraid it will not be open this time next year if some Minister does not take command and control and states it must be opened and no two ways about it. I have asked many times about it, as has Deputy Michael Healy-Rae, but nothing has happened and it is still closed.

Next Friday night we will have all of the wonderful people out on the Darkness into Light walk to collect funds to help people, and they will do a great service by doing the walk. It is a unified approach because, as Deputy Collins said, every family has been touched by mental health issues or the loss of someone through suicide. I ask the Government to ensure Deer Lodge on St. Margaret's Road, which cost millions of euro and is lying empty, be opened right away and that one of the five Ministers takes charge of it and ensures this happens.

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