Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

On behalf of the Social Democrats, I join others in paying tribute to Tommie Gorman. He had a stand-out career in public service broadcasting. My thoughts are with his family, friends and colleagues.

I am glad that the relevant Minister and Minister of State are present in the Chamber today. The group Mind EveryBody is in the audiovisual room as we speak and is trying to bring home the reality of how desperately people with eating disorders in this country need support. I do not know how to emphasise this enough. I have been raising this issue for years now. Over the years, I have spoken to women who have been forced to speak publicly and set up GoFundMe pages to try to get inpatient care for eating disorders. I have spoken to parents who are at their wits’ ends because they are quite literally watching their children wasting away while there is no support available to them. I have spoken to people who work in the NHS who are seeing Irish women going over to the UK to get the care they need because they simply cannot access it at home and are at death's door. That reality just does not seem represented in the Government's response. There has been zero in funding for inpatient beds for this over the past six years. Respectfully, I ask that instead of referring to care in the community - because I welcome the changes in that regard – the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, respond on the absence of inpatient beds for people with eating disorders.

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