Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)

I commend everybody who works in mental health services across the country. Many people's first port of call is their GP. The GP is the rock they can cling to and sometimes the only access they have to someone who will help them.

In her opening statement, the Minister of State said this year's theme was “Access to Services – Mental Health in Catastrophes and Emergencies”. I was quite taken by that because of an issue I have raised with the Minister of State before and want to raise again. A young man from Sligo, Jimmy Loughlin, was unfortunately murdered in February 2018 by a mental health service user. This issue has gone on for some time and his family wrote to the Minister of State on 11 August. The family also wrote to other members of the Government and to the CEO of the HSE but has not got a response yet to that particular letter.

I have a copy of a letter the Minister of State sent to Michael Loughlin, the father of the young man who was killed, on 25 July. The letter stated a review was in the final stages and a draft would be received in the coming weeks. It stated that once the report was finalised, the HSE had confirmed that it would contact the Loughlin family to discuss the findings and recommendations. The Minister of State also promised that her office would be in touch with the HSE and would discuss those findings and recommendations with the family when this happened. We are now in the middle of October and we have not seen this review. After the tragic event it went through, the family sought and expected a full review. A serious incident report is something that, statutorily, is normally carried out. It was not carried out, we are told. We understand it was started but stopped.

My colleague has mentioned people who break a leg or get a heart attack. Of course, services are there for those people. If the service is not there, that particular person can suffer huge consequences. If the service is not properly there when a person with a mental health condition contacts mental health services and goes into the system, that can have a tragic outcome. Suicide is often at the end of that route. In some of these cases, and in this family's case, it was not suicide; it was an innocent member of the public that suffered. This is not the only such case. There are others. People have come to me and we see other cases unfolding all the time. The absence of follow-up in mental health services to acute situations like this can have tragic outcomes for any member of the public as well as for the service user, yet the Government is stonewalling this family and stopping us finding out the truth. This situation is similar to many others around the country.

Across the water in Britain, there was a case where three people were killed and a report was done into it. The Government over there conducted an immediate, full and thorough investigation into it to find what lessons could be learned. Why are we not doing that here? Why are we allowing this to continually happen? It is totally at the Government's door that it does not ensure mental health services are in place to protect people - not just the unfortunate service user, but others who may face fatal consequences if this is not done.

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