Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

3 o’clock

It is with a heavy heart I stand before the Minister of State to speak about the issue of mental health. As I speak, another family in my constituency is trying to come to terms with the untimely death of their 16-year-old daughter. There is another community gripped by grief and it just is not right. It is every parent's worst nightmare to see their own flesh and blood feel so lost and down and to see no way out.

Unfortunately, I have seen a significant rise in the numbers in recent months, particularly since Covid took a grip of this country, and age and gender are no barriers. Within my constituency, the numbers are high and the age profile is young. Today I talk about a 16-year-old girl. Last week it was an 18-year-old young man. A number of weeks before that it was another 18-year-old man and before that, one family in Cavan town lost two members of their family, a brother and sister, to suicide a week apart.

There are wonderful people on the ground who are exemplary in terms of their volunteerism and while there is help from the HSE and Pieta House, it is still not enough. I feel passionately that as a county and constituency, we need statutory help. We need the help of an organisation like Jigsaw. I have mentioned this to the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, before. We are all new to this position of being in government but while on the Opposition benches, I also made this point. We also need the help of a suicide crisis assessment nurse, known as a SCAN nurse. Such a nurse would provide assistance and support immediately so that when people go to their general practitioner, they are given a contact person immediately and are not sent to an accident and emergency unit or put on a waiting list but can be attended to immediately.

I ask for three things today, namely, further help in primary care psychologist support; a SCAN nurse to be allocated to Cavan-Monaghan; and for the Minister of State to look seriously at the potential of putting Jigsaw into Cavan-Monaghan.

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