Eugene Murphy (Roscommon-Galway, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Byrne, for staying here to answer this Topical Issue matter. I am often in the Chair and I see her frequently having to deal with some of those questions. That is not easy for her but we do need to get our point of view across.

Unfortunately, when it comes to mental health services, Roscommon has been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons. We were all familiar with the external review into mental health services in County Roscommon, which, as the Minister of State will know, painted a damning indictment of a service in crisis mode, a service I would remind her where it was deemed a culture of blame, secrecy and negativity abounds. It was one of the worst cases in the country. There is no doubt about that. I brought our spokesperson on mental health to a special conference evening in Roscommon and he was shocked and astounded at what was revealed there.

A commitment was made in the programme for Government to improve mental health services in the country. The reason I am raising this matter on the Topical Issue Debate is to seek assurances that those key recommendations will be implemented without any further delay and to seek an update on them, if they have already been implemented.

I remind the Minister of State that the review carried out in Roscommon commenced in August 2015 and it was finally completed in September 2017, two years later. While I accept the three independent people who produced that report needed to get all the facts and figures, that was an extraordinary length of time when we are dealing with mental health issues. What is the point in having such reviews carried out if they are just left on the shelf to gather dust?

We discussed the crisis facing the Rosalie centre in Castlerea in Roscommon with the Minister of State, Deputy Jim Daly, yesterday evening. We discussed the need to save that unit. There are 12 patients in that unit. It has a capacity to accommodate 33 patients, but it has been simply run down by the HSE.

It is time that the HSE took its orders from the Minister. We need that space in the Rosalie unit in Roscommon. We need our hostels. There are a number of hostels being threatened with closure and no matter what the elected members, the HSE fora members, Deputy Browne, myself or any of my colleagues say, the HSE continues to take its decisions and move the way it wants to.

The HSE continuously tells people, such as me, that it knows what is best for the patient. I can tell the Minister of State, Deputy Catherine Byrne, I know many of those families and people, and in some of those situations, I, their families and the local GP know best what those patients need. Sometimes the HSE is totally wrong.

Clinical assessment goes on and on every time. In one case in Roscommon regarding the Rosalie centre, we are being told that the patients no longer need psychiatric nurses and they are moving on now to older care. The reality is a bond has built up between those patients and the staff. What is happening, and I cannot get this through to the HSE, is the service is making people unhappy.

Something we all try to do in mental health care is try and make people happy again. With conversation, one gets them at ease. One should talk to them. The Minister of State, Deputy Catherine Byrne, herself knows that. She put a lot of work into such issues in her own constituency. In my view, the Government needs to have strong words with the HSE and instruct it not to be making these people and their families unhappy.

I thank the Minister of State again for taking the question here this evening.

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