Michael McNamara (Clare, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I addressed the Minister of State at the time the second lockdown was being announced stating that we needed to have comprehensive data on self-harm presentations and on suicide in Ireland before there was ever another lockdown considered. We do not, as it happens, have either. That is an insult to Dáil but it is also an insult to the victims of mental health problems of whom there are many. Do we know yet how many suicides there were last year in Ireland? We do not have that figure. I will not go on about it because I have spoken about it previously. Nothing has happened or, at least, nothing visibly has happened.

I appreciate that the Minister of State is working hard behind the scenes to advance the issue that she is responsible for - I want to make that clear - but all of us are working and living in an incredibly oppressive society at present. The feeling is entirely oppressive and it is largely driven by elements in the media. I questioned whether there was sufficient coverage of mental health and I was attacked by some public health doctors for doing that and told that, of course, the National Public Health Emergency Team, NPHET, is trained to take account of mental health data. I asked how can it take account of it if it is not there and a media outlet, instead of probing whether the data were there or not, ran, in what I would consider to be an attempt to discredit my probing of it, a line stating that the chief medical officer, CMO, stated that NPHET regularly takes account of mental health. However, if you look at the minutes of NPHET, no account was taken of mental health up to the time of that second lockdown. One sub-committee mentioned it but there was no mention otherwise. The HSE national clinical programme for awareness and management of patients presenting with self-harm came out and stated that I was wrong to say that there was not data and that it had data from every emergency department. When one looks for the data, one finds out that they have data from some emergency departments but no data from any of the children's hospitals. We know children are suffering and we know that there are emergency departments so that is a lie on behalf of a Government agency to discredit somebody who is probing stuff. That is not good. That is oppressive.

We have another arm of the Government practically going out to Dublin Airport to burn witches live on air. I am talking about RTÉ. It is a disgrace. It is oppressive. It is driving anxiety in the State what RTÉ is doing.

There are massive problems with free media in Ireland. The Irish Timeshad its hands out looking for money from the Government. God knows, it is entitled to it. It has been doing the Government's bidding for a year. Where is the free media to come from if the primary income source for media - I am not talking about all media - is the Department of Health and the Government? Of course, they are doing the Government's bidding. Of course, they are driving a narrative.

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