Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I commend my comrade, Deputy Mark Ward. He is truly passionate about his portfolio and about attaining parity of esteem for mental health and physical health so that they would be treated equally.

For many, when it comes to our mental health and physical health, it is not just a question of what is wrong with us but of what happened to us. The psychologists say that if we cannot tell the story of what happened to us, it will tell itself anyway in our lives. Looking across this city and State we see people living with the consequences of what happened to them and what was done to them, all too often sometimes by the State. We had mother and baby homes, Magdalen laundries, industrial schools, hubs, hostels, soup runs and people living and dying in tents. A mother in my constituency was afraid to complain about HAP-funded, rat-infested accommodation because there was nowhere else for her to go with her family. Young mothers are taking their lives because of State-inflicted poverty, hunger, homelessness and sometimes the terror of Tusla.

If we are to have a serious conversation about mental health, we need to start with a serious conversation about why so many people are hanging on by a thread. I am a new Deputy and I am shocked when people ring and thank me for just listening to them. Sometimes they cry with relief. It is no wonder our offices are called clinics. Even as a councillor I often had people weeping across the table or down the telephone. One of the things they do not tell us we will need in our constituency offices is a box of tissues because of the pain that some people are in. I refer to people who work but who cannot get a home to rent or to buy. People are in pain because they have a blood platelet count of 435,000 and they cannot get a hospital appointment for a gastroenterologist since last July. They are in pain because their six-year old child needs a specialist interview for sexual abuse and they are waiting since March.

I have older men in my constituency who are living in conditions that are intolerable in a republic. They do not have light, running water, heat or electricity. They cannot wash themselves during a pandemic. Their mental health is really suffering. That is no wonder. They are asking themselves if they ever imagined, even on their worst day, that things would be this bad and that the system into which they have contributed would leave them like this. It is a measure of their own sanity that they question this because the answers to their questions are enough to drive anyone to despair. Society, in its addiction to the status quo, is content, so it is really important that we talk about parity between mental health and physical health. However, talk is cheap and ultimately it is useless. We as a State must look once and for all at what is driving people to despair. It is the lack of a decent home that they can afford, a lack of decent food, a lack of heat when it is cold or the lack of a job with good working conditions.

When they are sick they should have the chance to be treated in a fit for purpose health system and, above all, they should have the chance to be listened to.

People say we should leave our politics at the door when it comes to mental health but we express our politics in how we vote on matters. People expressed their opinion in electing us to the Dáil so it is really important to bring politics into the Chamber, as our voting "tá" and "níl" affects people. I thank Deputy Ward for bringing forward this Bill and I hope it will get support across the House.

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