Mark Ward (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State. I am a graduate of Maynooth University so I welcome the report by the centre there. I have worked in community mental health services and always found the inclusion of family members, loved ones, or both had much more positive outcomes. That holistic approach always works. As the study said, when a parent has mental health difficulties it can typically affect the entire family. I use the analogy of throwing a stone into a lake and seeing how the ripples go outwards. Those mental health difficulties touch everybody who is close to the person. As the Minister of State mentioned, the report said 23% of all families have at least one parent with mental ill health and that increases the likelihood of the children having a lifetime risk of mental ill health by 41% to 77%. This could be a really early indicator. We have had the debate around early interventions loads of times. Is this something that will be looked at going forward?

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