Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I too was delighted to get time to speak on this Bill. I compliment Deputy Browne for bringing it forward. Indeed, déanaim comhghairdeas leis an Aire Stáit freisin.

I thank the Minister of State for accepting this amendment and for having cross-party agreement. We all know how difficult and how challenging it is. Indeed, Deputy Durkan mentioned the former Deputy, Dan Neville, who was a wonderful champion. While I was in this House, up to the last election, he was always - he still is - an advocate and did tremendous work.

It is a sensitive and delicate issue. It is the poor relation within the HSE. We had great expectations back when I was a member of Deputy Browne's party and the then Minister of State, for Deputy John Moloney, brought forward A Vision for Change. It involved a lot of planning. I suppose A Vision for Change was the appropriate phrase but, unfortunately, it has not delivered. We were sceptical at the time. The ring-fenced budget, famously, of €50 million, for several years was never ring-fenced by successive Ministers. We were always told it was ring-fenced but it was not and it was taken off and put into different areas year after year. I remember being here when it was voted through, changed and amended and that is not good enough.

We all hear in our clinics and in phone calls every day of the week from distressed parents of youngsters and teenagers about the lack of services. We ourselves meet people who present to us. We are not - certainly speaking for myself I am not - adept at dealing with people in those situations. One picks up the phone or goes to whatever index to contact whoever one thinks one should ring and there are no services and certainly none after hours.

We see the situation with the CAMHS issue with young children and teenagers. It is a vulnerable age, anywhere between eight, nine and 14, 15 or 16 years. It is terrible: parents come in who do not know where to turn, living through hell and fear, and on 24-7 watch. There is desperation that they cannot get services. They cannot get appointments.

In my area in south Tipperary we had a fine mental hospital, St. Luke's, which was closed. It covered all the county long-term. Many of those patients - I still meet them out in the community - are doing fine but some, quite frankly, did not do fine. One cannot decide that people who have been institutionalised for so many decades will live in a community setting, because they are not able to adapt. It is a huge challenge.

Then we had a short-stay facility, St. Michael's, which was attached to St. Joseph's. A 40-bed unit, it was a life-saver for people from all over Tipperary. It also was unceremoniously closed. The former Minister of State, Ms Kathleen Lynch, at the time would not listen to anyone - the patient advocates, patients themselves who came up who were good ambassadors who had recovered and may have slipped in there as a fall-back place for some therapy and treatment once or twice a year. That was a wonderful unit of 40 beds. They abolished it. They just closed the doors on it, with no services provided. There were promises of services from a couple of community teams but they were not recruited. This is the shameful part of it. Deputy Kelly stated he did not think it was about money. I do not know what it is. If it is not money, it is downright carelessness and borders on blackguarding.

We were told to go to Kilkenny. People from Tipperary at the Limerick border were told to go to Kilkenny with no transport, no way of getting in and no beds in Kilkenny. Then all the patients have to present to an accident and emergency unit, which is totally unsuitable with the chronic situation there. If they are not in the best of form and have mental issues or any kind of psychotic attack, that is not the place to have them. They are traumatised enough and the nurses are under enough pressure.

Then there was a private taxi service that would being them. A number of nurses would travel with them, if somebody presented with a psychotic attack. That was pulled by email on a Friday evening.

Now if they present themselves voluntarily at 5.30 p.m. any evening - if it is a Friday evening I do not know what they will do - they have to sit on a chair in the hospital until 9 a.m. the following morning until an ambulance arrives. The garda fills in if it is an involuntary admission, but they have not the time either. Therefore, there are no services in south Tipperary.

I salute those who are involved in the services but it is so sad. I wish this committee, chaired by Deputy Harty from the Rural Independent Group, well. I honestly do. We need to get them doing their work but we need to come in then, put our money where our mouth is and re-evaluate where A Vision for Change failed. We have all these wonderful schemes - Deputy Mary Butler informed me that the Minister has now agreed to look at the cardiac situation in Waterford again and setting up a review - but we need to see these reviews, who is on them or who is giving them their riding instructions.

A Vision for Change was a lovely document. I am sure a lot of time and expert analysis went into it but it has not worked. It could not work when we did not put the riders on board - we did not give it the staff. We had funding there and it was not ring-fenced. It was taken off for other areas in health. Health is just gobbling up funding.

It behoves us all because, as Deputy Kelly stated, there is not a family, parish, village or townland that has not somebody somewhere who is affected. Increasingly, with the pressures that are on people now, it will be harder and harder.

For young people especially, they need a fair start in life. It is shameful. We all must hang our heads in shame and accept that we have not demanded enough. We have not fought enough for it. We have not just kicked up enough of a row about it. It is the same with people with disabilities who came up yesterday and were out here again. They are neglected.

Those are not, I suppose, glossy or nice issues, but they have to be confronted. We have to police the Minister of State, Deputy Jim Daly, on the funding and that the appointments will be filled. We see loads of advertisement and then we never see the places filled. One is told one will wait three months or four months and when one goes back the next time, one hears the place has not been filled and someone retired, is out on leave or sick leave and one waits 12 months or 15 months which is totally unacceptable. One should not be waiting 12 days for those kind of services, or 12 hours in some cases. The services are just not there. People are ending up in suicidal situations with many, many good lives destroyed, families tormented and huge trauma visited on a family and the community.

We need to deal with this amendment - it is being accepted - and move forward in a positive manner.

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