Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

I welcome this important motion and praise the Regional Independent Group for bringing it before the Dáil. I would like to give a special mention to Cáit Nic Amhlaoibh, who did massive work in the development of this particular motion. This is a strong motion and, if implemented, would make a radical change to hundreds of thousands of lives around the country. I also welcome the fact that the Regional Independent Group has done good work in trying to get cross-party support for this motion. I ask that the Government does not just give a nod to this motion if a vote is required but takes the bull by its horns and implements it. We would be wrong to think that all of the words that have been articulated in the Dáil with regard to mental health over the years have made a difference in people's lives. The truth is that we need to put actions where goodwill has been articulated in this Chamber.

I would like to take the lens back a little bit, if I can. The society that we are building throughout Ireland at the moment is having an increasingly negative impact on mental health. Families are pressured by work and commuting. Children have to deal with social media and bullying. Alcoholism and drug addiction etc. also impact families. We can add to that the pressures that are now coming from Covid restrictions. An economic wasteland is developing among many sectors of society that will have an enormous impact on people's lives. The debt that has been accrued to this society, knowing the Government's track record, will likely lead to austerity over the next number of years which, in itself, will have a shockingly negative aspect on people's lives. Human interaction and relationships are some of the best ways to deal with mental health issues and they have been taken away from many people in Irish society.

Another aspect of all of this is the fact that the Government is no longer measuring the key indicators in this area. I have asked a number of key questions of the Minister for Health around suicide rates etc. and he has not been able to answer them. If one cannot measure, one cannot manage. I have spoken to NGOs that have told me that there are increasing mental health pressures on families around the country. I put in a parliamentary question to the Minister on the matter. He has admitted to me that he has received letters from NGOs which show an increase in mental health pressures and suicide rates during the pandemic. His response indicates that he has been contacted and that concerns have been expressed about the increase in suicides. However, the Minister, unfortunately, has not elaborated. I would like the Ministers of State, Deputies Feighan, also to look into that matter.

The increased restrictions have had an enormous effect on community-based mental health services. They have had to change radically the way in which they operate by shifting to remote consultations, telephone calls etc. Many therapies for drug and alcohol addiction have become one step removed from human interactions. That has significantly reduced their impact.

In the short time I have left, I want to talk about one important element. Consultants have spoken to me in depth about the fact that there is a shortage of psychiatric beds in Ireland at the moment. The situation is actually getting worse because Government policy has been to reduce the number of psychiatric beds despite the fact that we already have one of the lowest proportions of beds per capitain the developed world. My county of Meath is a microcosm of that. Four or five years ago, we had a 24-hour mental health unit in our local hospital. That was closed by the Fine Gael Government and now the 200,000 people living in the county have to go to County Louth to access services. We were told that we would be left with a day hospital for mental health services in County Meath but the trend has continued in exactly the same way and that day hospital has been closed in recent times. People from right across the county have to exit Meath to get to mental health services. That is a county with probably the fifth highest population in the country. In real terms, by closing beds, we are sending people into either homelessness or prison. We are sending them into difficult situations.

I call special attention to older people in our society who have been the most exposed by the Government during this pandemic. We have lost an enormous number of older people in the past year. Well over 1,000 older people have died in nursing homes because of the pandemic. They are under increasing stress and strain and now have to deal with isolation and the lack of human interaction with their families because they do not get the level of visits that they normally would. They also now have the question of the vaccine coming in front of them. I ask the Ministers of State, Deputies Feighan and Butler, to do their best to make sure that we get supports to older people so that they can deal with the stresses, strains and threats that they are experiencing within nursing homes.

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