Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Pringle for leaving me lots of time. I have already wished the Minister of State the best and I look forward to working with her. I am going to make use of the few minutes I have to zone in on a number of matters.

If the Minister of State wants to leave a mark, she might set up the independent monitoring panel as a matter of urgency. This was a recommendation from many groups. We had A Vision for Change and to me that was perfect. I am on record as saying it was the most wonderful vision in theory but it was never implemented. The independent monitoring body sat for two three-year periods and it did an excellent job. It was so good that it was abolished. I ask the Minister of State to reinstate it as a matter of urgency. I am a tiny bit disappointed that the Minister of State said in her speech that it was well advanced. Let me take that as a positive message and I ask the Minister of State to give me a date when it will be reinstated in order to assure me. The Minister of State mentioned representation across all of the therapies, not dominated by psychiatry. There is a role for psychiatry but there is also a role for clinical psychology and the various therapies. The Minister of State mentioned the users as well. That is one issue and I would appreciate if the Minister of State could give a date for it.

I refer to the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act 2015. This Act became law in 2015 after a long campaign well before my time. I hope it does not go on well after my time because the Act was enacted and everything was good about it but the decision support service is not functioning, even though it has been established. What are the consequences of that? We have people being made wards of court on a weekly basis when there is absolutely no need for it and they are functioning at 100%. That Act abolished that whole concept and said we should assist people to make decisions. That is the second matter I ask the Minister of State to zone in on because that will make a huge difference to people's lives.

The third matter I want to zone in on is what we call our elderly. I do not like to distinguish in terms of age. The worst thing about the Covid-19 crisis was that we told people over 70 to stay at home. It was a dreadful message and I foolishly went along with it. At some stage, I realised this was totally unacceptable and the former Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, said he realised it was a wrong use of language and he would not do it again. We have spent years trying to bring equality into our language and we got rid of it in one go in a pandemic by talking about cocooning, which really meant locking up. We did it in such a deceptive way. We did not tell people they had a choice, even though they did have a choice. We should drop that.

We do not need to keep making statements about suicide. It was all there in A Vision for Change, which became Sharing the Vision and prior to that it was called Planning for the Future. We know what is happening and what is required. It is all set out in A Vision for Change. It has been updated and we have changed the title but it is all there. Anecdotally, we can stand here and tell the Minister of State about the suicide rates. It is not acceptable and I do not want to talk in an anecdotal manner. I want to ensure that the services are there on the ground.

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought into acute focus our lack of services. Day centres have been mentioned and I do not have time to go into them. There are a whole load of emails from people who are at the end of their tether because the day centres have not opened. The Government has to tell us what the plan is and when they will be opened in order to give hope.

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