Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)

I echo the remarks of Deputy Eoghan Kenny with regard to trans healthcare and, indeed, condemn outright the appalling personalised attack on the Minister of State for her compassion. I have known the Minister of State for a long time, and she is somebody who wears her heart on her sleeve. It is important to have that within the Department of Health. I will always have her back, as I think will nearly everybody in this House, on how she seeks to ensure that Ireland becomes a fairer society.

I would also echo that I think we need, as has been raised, a State-run prostate screening programme for men. The quicker we can roll that out, the better. The risk of prostate cancer is well articulated, but a State-run programme where men would be encouraged to take part is critical.

A lot of colleagues have raised the question of mental health services. The Minister of State has been a champion in that space. I would certainly echo the importance of engaging in rural Ireland, particularly with men on farms in rural communities who are often reluctant to go to their GP. There is fabulous work being done by Macra na Feirme in terms of Make the Moove and so on. There is that difficulty with regard to getting men to talk. The Minister of State will be familiar with Talk to Tom, which was founded in Gorey and works in my community. We also have the Samaritans based in Arklow. They face a particular challenge that unlike a lot of other Samaritans, they are renting a premises. Therefore, I would suggest that when core funding has been taken into account for organisations, regard can be had to where an organisation has to rent premises as opposed to where it may own it. The Minister of State knows only too well the importance of simply being able to talk about mental health issues, particularly for men. It is critical.

Too often in many ways, we actually come at it too late when we try to talk about health. We do not sufficiently invest in health promotion or talking about positive health. As the Minister of State knows, I am a big believer that if we invest in sport, the arts and community activity, that is vitally important for people's physical and mental well-being. As she also knows, I regularly sing the praises of park runs all around the country, and I know people who take part within the park run community. Many of them do it for physical health reasons, but also for mental health reasons. The sense of community that has provided is critical. The Minister of State will be aware that I have urged for quite some time that we look at the introduction of tax relief for gym membership and membership of sporting organisations. As a State, we need to encourage people to be as physically and mentally healthy as possible, and engagement in community activities, whether those are the arts, sport or whatever else, contributes very positively to physical and mental good health. Not everybody is going to run a marathon, although many will be running it this weekend, yet engaging people in sport is a very positive development.

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