Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Acting Chair for this very important debate. It is world mental health week and today is World Mental Health Day in the workplace. I read an article before I went out which stated that 37% of all people surveyed who came through the services of St. Patrick's hospital, Dublin, experienced work-related stress and work-related incidents in their workplace. Stress-related situations in our workplaces are very noticeable, including bullying, which can have a very insidious effect on a person's mental health. It is very important we call this out and highlight it. It is very important on the basis that years ago, maybe two generations ago, we did terrible things in this country to those with mental health difficulties. We institutionalised them. At one stage, Ireland had one of the highest per capita rates of institutionalising people with mental health difficulties. Thankfully, we have moved away from that model.

There is a better model of people at least talking about mental health difficulties and their mental health. That is very good, especially regarding male mental health. For too long, men just would not talk about difficulties or even get help. Once people get help and share some of the difficulties they are having, if they are going through a crisis, the main thing is they get the service and intervention. Once they get the intervention at the right time, there is recovery and hope, but if they do not get it at the right time, the consequences could be catastrophic. It is very important we have the services in place regardless of someone's age.

On the mental health of young people, which was spoken about, there is a crisis in their anxiety levels. This is all fuelled by social media. It is negative. A lot of the stuff on social media is about competition and negative messages all the time. There is only so much of that people can correlate and take in. It can have a bad and detrimental effect on a young person's health and well-being. Social media companies do not really care at this stage but young people do care. It is important the State cares about their well-being.

One of the things I am a big supporter of is social prescribing. It is a fantastic model. In the past, and it is still contemporary, we overprescribed. If somebody is in difficulty, we prescribe medication. That is needed in some cases, but social prescribing is very good. Social prescribing does not work for everybody but it works for some, including getting involved in activities, going for a walk or running. It is amazing what physical exercise can do for your well-being. It is fantastic. One thing I love more than anything in the world is going for a walk in the forest, where there is complete silence and the only thing you can hear is nature and your own thoughts. As I said, it is not for everybody but it is a great way of detaching yourself from the world and sometimes seeing what nature is.

Social prescribing is much more than that but it is one model, if it is done properly, that can work for people, with engagement. We are all social animals at the end of the day. Human beings love other human beings to a large degree. When we are together, we work very well collectively. Mental health, collectively, is very important. There is nothing like that collectivisation of our thoughts and well-being. One thing that got us through Covid, even though we were very separated across the world, was that coming together in a virtual sense. There was also that collective sense of all of us being together and vulnerable. Everybody is vulnerable in this world. Things can go wrong. There is trauma in people's lives but we should have a more caring and kinder world. We should be kinder to ourselves because we can be very hard on ourselves. It is important to not be as hard as we could be. I am the first one to say that sometimes we go hard on ourselves. We should take time to say, "I am a good person. I try to do my best. I try to do good for others and be kind to others", because in a kinder and better world, all our mental health will benefit.

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