Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The sum of €1.4 billion is more than half a billion greater than what will be spent on mental health in the State in 2018, according to the Government, if we can trust that figure, which is questionable. The sum of €1.4 billion could help to do a lot of additional things for mental health this year. It could easily ensure that no mental health beds that are needed are closed, especially in the child and adolescent mental health service, CAMHS. It could easily pay for additional counselling hours for people at primary care level, which would take the pressure off other services. It could help to build a model of perinatal mental health screening and support and open a maternal mental health unit. It could ensure that some staff members in the mental health services are encouraged to stay in Ireland and work in our services without fear of not being able to afford to pay for accommodation or transport or many other things which now are beyond the wage they make. It could fund the establishment of new early intervention programmes, new Jigsaw centres and new CAMHS teams. It could entice the staff needed to fill the vacancies in these services to stay. It could fund a national 24-7 crisis hotline for mental health, with access to trained counsellors and a referral system. It could make some serious progress on delivery of a seven-day week service that is needed as the long-overdue first step in a 24-7 crisis intervention service. It could establish additional crisis houses for people in immediate need of acute supported care in a safe environment. It could pay for respite for families that are at breaking point. The Minister might not currently see this as an investment but it is the best kind of an investment one can make, namely, one in the people of the country and in their well-being and in doing that, it is an investment in all our future. The short-term dividend would be that the people of this nation might actually believe the Government gives a damn about them. I will finish with a quote from a famous Corkman who once said, fail to prepare, prepare to fail.

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