Séamus Healy (Tipperary, Workers and Unemployed Action Group) | Oireachtas source

I am right. We took that case to the High Court and indeed to the Supreme Court. Former Deputy Kathleen Lynch, who was a Minister of State, closed it. She told me and the deputation in this House that the closure of the unit was not set in stone but in blood. The Minister of State, Deputy Kehoe, can take that for absolute fact. People who need inpatient mental health facilities in south Tipperary have to go to Kilkenny, to a unit that has been prosecuted by the Mental Health Commission. Those in north Tipperary have to go to Ennis. It is outrageous. There is significant concern about it and lives have been lost. It is time to bring back those beds to Tipperary. I commend the Minister of State, Deputy Jim Daly, who was certainly helpful in that regard, but we need action quickly to bring those beds back to Tipperary.

The Minister for Finance, in his budget day speech, spoke about how the new HSE management had reduced the overspend considerably. He never mentioned the fact that that saving, as he called it, was due to the fact that there is a moratorium on the appointment of staff, meaning that thousands of posts are vacant across the health services. I refer to three specific posts that are vacant in Tipperary. We were told last July that they would be filled by now. There are two posts in the child and adolescent mental health service, CAMHS. The candidates were interviewed, the appointees were notified and are awaiting a date to take up their posts, but cannot take them up because of the moratorium. We are waiting for clinical nurse specialists in the emergency department to deal with patients attending it with mental health difficulties. It is time for that moratorium to be lifted and posts such as the one I mentioned to be filled urgently.

There are various other issues in this Finance Bill and budget, including housing and education. I refer in particular to the lack of social welfare increases. The fact is that social welfare recipients, including pensioners, will be worse off next year to the tune of €168. They will be less well off by €3.22 per week. This Government could not even see its way to giving the €5 that it gave last year. That is completely unacceptable and outrageous. Very poor people with very little income are paying the price for Brexit and climate change. Inflation next year will be 1.3%, as set out by the Minister. That means that every social welfare recipient and every pensioner will be €3.22 less well off next year. In a very wealthy country with very wealthy individuals, that is a disgrace.

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