Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Today is, of course, World Mental Health Day. I thank the Minister of State for the work she has done in her role since her appointment as Minister of State with responsibility for this very important issue. I know she feels it with her heart, in her head and with all of the work she does in respect of policy, legislation and funding. I thank her for making sure that Cavan and Monaghan got their suicide crisis assessment nurses, SCANs. That is something I long campaigned for when we were in opposition. When we were in government, the Minister of State listened to that call and came to see the work the HSE is doing on the ground in St. Davnet's Hospital, Monaghan, and the facilities it is delivering.

I concur with many speakers around the House. SOSAD is one of those groups that is really on the ground across Cavan-Monaghan. That has to be said. The volunteers give their time to be at the end of the phone. The counselling service SOSAD provides is incredibly important. I urge the Minister of State to lend the organisation her support in any way she can.

The Minister of State will know that I have felt for a very long time that visibility is incredibly important as regards mental health services. I still feel very strongly about that. Cavan-Monaghan has certainly seen very difficult times over recent years with the loss of many young lives, including very young lives, and the lives of people in their more mature years. It affects every family, every demographic and every part of the constituency. I have felt very strongly that we need the visible presence of a service such as Jigsaw. I know the Minister of State has listened to me. We have had a number of meetings on this issue and she is working on helping me to deliver on that. I really believe this is incredibly important for a number of reasons. It is a signpost and provides a visible physical presence in a county. We cannot have them in every community, as we might like to. In fairness to SOSAD, it is out there running hubs in various more rural communities but the visible presence of an organisation like Jigsaw is one of the best preventatives we could have. I want to see prevention. That is critically important. If we have prevention, we do not need the cure.

There was a very heated and robust debate here this morning about mobile phones and social media. Principals, teachers and school communities are really up against it in trying to support young people and allow them time away from technology. Many families who have been impacted and affected by the loss of young people through suicide point to the phone as a facilitator. It is a facilitator for real pressures on young people's mental health. It is a facilitator for people who want to use them in an untoward way to carry out bullying, using them as a silent vehicle to torture, torment and relentlessly pick at and destroy the lives of young people. There has been a lot of criticism of these pouches for schools but I am all for anything we can do to resource schools to make this easier. I would be the first to admit that some principals have told me that they have rules in place such that students are not allowed to bring their phones to school and must leave them at home and that they do not need the pouches. That is fine but I also know principals who are struggling to police this, to manage it and to support teachers to support their students to keep away from technology.

It is not just about the distraction in the classroom but it is also about that mental health piece where the torture and the continuing picking on someone can be relentless. This is the way to do it. This is the unseen way to do it. Parents can go through months of that invisible torture where something is not tangible to them. Sometimes it can be too late when they find the phone and find out about the relentless torture that has gone on on the other end of it. It is a wise decision by the Minister to provide that resource to support teachers in schools because it is one of the most important areas of a young person's life. Young people leave their house at 9 o'clock in the morning and some do not return until 4 o'clock or 5 o'clock in the evening. If they can have that break from their phone, it is to be welcomed.

I appeal to any of the social media platforms which are listening in. I do not feel they are playing their part or that they are doing their utmost in terms of the take-down of information, hate speech or torturous posts that people put up on their social media platforms. We know it is the wild west. In my committee, we have done as much as we can on online safety. It is the preserve of Coimisiún na Meán to step in here and ensure that the social media platforms do as much as they can to support parents, schools, principals and An Garda Síochána. Those platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok, have the greatest responsibility and resources available to them. I believe they should be resourcing our Government, education system and mental health services to deal with the negative impact social media can have on the mental health of our young people.

My final ask to the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, relates to Jigsaw. I know we are possibly coming to the end of a political cycle but it is not an issue that will go away and it is not an issue I intend to move away from. I intend to keep campaigning for that very visible signpost, such as Jigsaw for Cavan-Monaghan, for young people, because I believe it provides an important service for counselling and prevention. We need to get to our young people in time and for them to know where that service is, otherwise they are not so aware of it. Jigsaw and some multiple health services did an incredible job during Covid to have the teleservice online, to do Zoom calls and so on, but you cannot beat that face-to-face service. That is why I feel that the physical presence of a service like Jigsaw would be incredibly useful, supportive and engaging for young people across Cavan-Monaghan.

I thank the Minister of State for the suicide crisis assessment nurse, SCAN, positions in the HSE in Cavan-Monaghan. If there are more available to us, please assign them. I am sure the Minister of State knows the statistics and numbers better than I do. Families across Cavan-Monaghan have suffered greatly in one way or another, whether it is the family directly or the entire community, because we know it impacts on everybody. I ask the Minister of State to give the resources that can be given.

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