Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I again thank Deputy Healy for raising this important issue. I assure him that we will examine the matter that he suggests. Project Ireland 2040 provides over €10 billion for investment in our health infrastructure, including, buildings, equipment and ICT. As part of this spend, an additional 2,500 inpatient beds will be provided. As part of this expansion and the provision of those additional 2,500 beds, perhaps an appropriate number could be provided for mental health services in the south east. Where new beds are being provided, the intention is to open mental health and psychiatric wards in existing hospitals rather than reopen old psychiatric hospitals, thus mainstreaming mental health, as it always should have been. Centuries ago Descartes or somebody else suggested that somehow mental health was separate from physical health but we all know, although it may have taken us decades and centuries to relearn it, that mental health is intertwined with physical health and it is right that they be integrated again.

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