Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Fianna Fáil for bringing forward this motion. I thank the Minister of State for being actively interested in County Kerry. He has come down on a number of occasions connected with different aspects of his portfolio. I will welcome him any time he wants to come down. I invite him now because there are other issues with which we want him to deal in County Kerry and I look forward to seeing him visiting as soon as possible. I especially compliment the people who work in the mental health services in County Kerry. I served for seven or eight years on the psychiatric services committee of the old Southern Health Board. During that time I got to know, appreciate and understand the workings of mental health care and all the different plans that were formulated over 15 years. We had A Vision for Change and all of the different models that were brought in regarding how to deal with mental health care and issues arising out of that.

I have one thing to say about County Kerry and the whole country at present. A gap arises in the services where a person is going into adulthood but is perhaps neither a child nor an adult. The Minister of State knows as well as I do that there is a deficiency in the service in that respect. Parents are left in a traumatised state with a young person in the house under their care who is neither a child nor an adult. Those people need very special care and attention. We are failing to give them that care. There are failings in the system and it is not the fault of the people working in the service. It is us as legislators, the HSE and the governance that needs to be addressed to ensure that facilities and services will be put in place to take care of those youngsters and to mind them every day. That is needed because we could lose them in a shot and we do not want to lose anybody. Losing one person is too much. Every county and every family is affected by suicide and similar issues. We want to protect people in those situations.

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