Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

There has been a lot of talk tonight about wishing the Minister of State well and we have spoken a couple of times at this stage already but I wish her well in her role as Minister of State with responsibility for mental health, in particular, because it is a vitally important service. While the Minister of State's intentions might be well and good and she will do her best in this role, unfortunately the Government will not give mental health services the attention they need to ensure they are developed. That will be a problem, it has been a problem for many years and it is not something the Minister of State will be able to solve as it stands. The Covid-19 crisis has put a focus on mental health services and it has shown that they are badly wanting, as if we did not know that already. We knew that before this crisis began and before January of this year because mental health services have always been given the least thought among our health service system as a whole.

I want to focus on the mental health reform pre-budget submission, which is vitally important, and which other Members have mentioned tonight. It calls for €80 million to be invested this year in the budget, which is not much in terms of a €16 billion to €17 billion overall health budget. I would like to see it being delivered but we will have to wait and see whether that will happen or not. That will be telling.

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