Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is great to have an opportunity to speak on this Bill. I congratulate Deputy Ward. I also wish the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, the very best of luck in her role. I will be very brief and try to explain to people what parity of esteem means when it comes to mental health. It is defined as valuing mental health equally with physical health, which would result in those with mental health problems benefitting from equal access to the most effective and safest care and treatment. It is about equal efforts to improve the quality of care. It is about the allocation of time, effort and resources based on need. It is also about equal status within healthcare, education and practice. It is about equally high aspirations for service users and equal status in the measurement of health outcomes.

We talk about parity because one of the biggest issues we have had in this country for many years is the stigma attached to mental health. Stigma refers to problems of knowledge, which is basically ignorance, and attitudes and behaviour of discrimination against people. This Bill tries to remove the stigma attached to mental ill health. For many years we have spoken about the fact that with health issues we try to treat the problem, whereas with mental health we will have to treat the person and in order to do that we need wraparound services. I had a very brief meeting with the Minister just before this and we spoke about it. It is about educating everybody when it comes to how we judge people and, more importantly, how we do not judge people.

Taking a parity-of-esteem approach would also enable the HSE and local authority health and social care services to provide a holistic, whole-person response to a problem. The relationship between physical health and mental health is such that poor mental health is also linked with a higher risk of physical health problems and poor physical health is linked with poor mental health, so the parity is there already. In the current Covid climate, we are all aware from the many calls to our offices that people are suffering in so many different ways at the moment. We should do the right thing and make a positive move here today. The aim of the Bill is to include everybody and to accept that, come the exit from Covid, many people will suffer with some form of mental anguish or mental ill health.

The Bill is important because it gives an opportunity for all parties and none to start afresh. Let us go into 2021 putting our hands up and saying we will now accept that we have to treat everybody equally and respect everybody equally. We must give people the care they need. It is very simple. If a person breaks a leg and arrives in an accident and emergency department, everybody knows what their job is and what they have to do. It should be the same when a person is in trouble with a mental health issue. What is important is not to judge people because we do not know what ticks their boxes. With Covid, many people are suffering. Some have lost their jobs. Others have lost loved ones or they are in trouble with their mortgages. We are all individuals and we deal with anxiety and grief very differently. It is about having a wraparound service for each individual and treating the individual and not the so-called pain. We spoke many times about mental health in the Dáil Chamber. I am very optimistic that we can get off on the right foot in 2021, with the agreement of all parties. I would love to see us as human beings standing up and saying we are going to address the real issues and do the right thing.

I did a lot of research recently in the UK, which is probably three or four years ahead of the position here. The system there is working. I do not want to frighten the living daylights out of anyone but, as it stands, the life expectancy of a person with a mental health illness can be shortened by ten to 15 years and sometimes 20 years. It is very important that we treat each and every individual with empathy, respect and non-judgment. If we can bring about parity of esteem and understanding of mental health across the board in this country, we will be doing the right thing. I hope and pray that all parties and none will at least back the Bill to proceed to the next Stage. I hope we can increase people's life expectancy and their belief in the services improving. We know the services are at breaking point at the moment. They are very under-resourced. I would very much welcome if we could all agree on a starting point and a plan to move this issue forward in the coming years. I urge Members to please support the Bill and to do the right thing for everybody.

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