Joe McHugh (Donegal, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I want to make two brief points. I thank Deputy Browne for introducing this important Bill. It is important to discuss this issue and give it the attention it demands and requires. I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle for facilitating that. I acknowledge the leadership of the Ceann Comhairle in organising the symposium on mental health that will take place in Dublin Castle in 19 September. As a result of a decision that was made in recent days, the Oireachtas committee will be up and running before that event, which is important. It has to be acknowledged that our colleagues on the Business Committee, including Deputy Boyd Barrett, collaborated to reach consensus on this issue. There will be difficulties if leadership does not continue to come from this House and from the Seanad. We have consensus and collaboration. This shows that we can work together on difficult issues. My colleagues, the Minister of State, Deputy Jim Daly, and Deputy Neville, will work closely on this collaborative effort through the joint committee over a 12-month period. I look forward to the outcome of their work.

We live in an electronic and technological world. Like everyone else, politicians are now very accessible. The more I see the mediums, mechanisms and avenues that are available to us for communication, the more I think we are less connected at a physical level.

It is something of which people will be conscious when deliberating over this report. In Ireland in particular, if one brings it back to a parish or county level, the face-to-face, shoulder-to-shoulder and people-to-people physical interaction is very important and cannot be ignored. I always think back to an event in Letterkenny in 1996. It was a youth seminar in my days as a youth worker. I remember a young group of teenagers from Lifford who came onto the stage to make a presentation on what they felt was necessary to address the gap in youth provision. I remember they came onto the stage and remained silent for a number of minutes. We wondered what they were going to do. We did not know there were placards on the floor. Eventually the group, of about a dozen, lifted up the placards on which were the words "Why talk when nobody listens?", which I found to be very powerful and we must be conscious of it. I do not have any teenagers at the moment but I know parents struggle with that interaction. Being there in person for them is very important. When I think back to my own days as a teenager, I battled it out with my father, even though, when we were battling, we were still communicating and he was always there for me. It is something that we have to be conscious of.

Ba mhaith liom mo aitheantas a ghabháil leis na Teachtaí fá choinne a gcuid oibre ar an ábhar thar a bheith tábhachtach seo. Ba mhaith liom freisin aitheantas a ghabháil leis an gCeann Comhairle as ucht a cheannasaíocht agus a chomhoibriú le linn na hoibre seo. My final point - mo fhocal scoir - is that last year, as Minister of State with responsibility for the diaspora, I got a chance to go to Africa and such places, and I came across a bit of Swahili, umoja na nguvu, which is the Swahili for "together stronger", and it is no different to our ní neart go cur le chéile, meaning there is no strength without unity. I believe we have the strength and unity of purpose on this issue. I wish the joint committee on mental health well over the 12-month period from September and am confident that we will make progress on this issue in the future.

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