Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

At the outset, I acknowledge that in the main, the Bill is positive. It is encouraging to see the Government adopt many of the recommendations of the expert review group. The Bill is a positive advancement in supporting those with mental health challenges. However the delay in publishing the Bill is disappointing. The Government had four years to produce a Bill. To do so in the last weeks or months of its term means that its provisions will not be enacted in the lifetime of the Government.

Two years after the pre-legislative scrutiny, we are only getting to debate the Bill now. That is not good enough for those who suffer with mental health challenges and were expecting more. Unfortunately, under this Government, mental health is not treated as a priority. If mental health was a priority we would have had the Bill enacted. The trial 24-7 de-escalation unit in Limerick that my colleague, Deputy Ward, mentioned would be already operational. It was due to be operational in quarter 4 of 2022 but has faced delay upon delay and is still not operational. It baffles me that over two years on, this service has still not been rolled out. It is an out-of-hours service and, as we know, the challenges of mental health do not operate to a schedule. The trial in the North proved successful with many people being treated and diverted from emergency departments. We know that anything that can be done to divert people from going to the emergency department in Limerick would be very welcome.

For too long, mental health has been treated as a mere tack-on to more general health. For too long, waiting lists, particularly for children and adolescents have been moving in the wrong direction. One must look at the child and adolescent mental health services and the wait times since this Government took over. In the CHO that covers the area of Limerick, Clare and north Tipperary, when the Government took over there were 196 people waiting to be seen by CAMHS. Fast forward to May 2024, CHO 3 has 234 people waiting to be seen. The psychology services in CAMHS have seen a dramatic increase in the number waiting for treatment. In CHO 3, there were 525 children waiting in December 2020. In February 2024 there were 776 children waiting for treatment. Every expert in child and adult mental health will say that early intervention is vital to avoid enduring and worsening problems in the future, yet these figures reveal that if a child or young person seeks out care, he or she will likely face extensive waiting periods that are simply unacceptable and which put that person and his or her mental health at serious risk. The children on mental health waiting lists have waited long enough. The approach to mental health needs to change. While children await appointments, their childhoods are being damaged.

What Sinn Féin would do differently to this Bill is in our mental health action plan. It outlines what we would do to support those with mental health challenges. That includes universal counselling, primary care, State-wide access to integrated mental health and well-being community services, the delivery of 47 additional community CAMHS teams and 41 inpatient community CAMHS beds and crucially, the roll-out of a full emergency department self-harm and suicide reduction programme.

The Bill is a positive step but more needs to be done. I hope that the upcoming budget offers significant resources to those supporting those in need. Mental Health Reform, in its lobby emails that I am sure every single TD in the Chamber has received, has called for an investment of an additional €120 million in our mental health services in the upcoming budget, with €40 million to maintain existing services and €80 million to be used exclusively to develop new and improved mental health services. This is a fair call which is supported by research. I am sure that many families would be waiting to see if this ambition is matched by the Government.

Before I finish, I want to commend and express my gratitude to all the huge number of volunteer groups which work in Limerick. They are going into the bearna bhaoil where the Government has failed. It is very depressing when you live in Limerick to hear the helicopter overhead. Suicide can be very public. I want to commend some of the volunteer groups such as Limerick Suicide Watch and Limerick Treaty Suicide Prevention, which patrol the river banks, the Haven Hub and Limerick Land Search. I attended their new premises last week, which it has attained through voluntary contributions. It is not yet complete and it is looking for extra money. These volunteers step into the gap where other services do not exist, along with a large number of other groups which I did not have the chance to mention.

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