Geraldine Feeney (Fianna Fail)

I wish the media would take up the issue of banishing the stigma that is attached to mental health. It would make the Minister of State's job much easier if the media would do that but they are not interested in that type of a story.

I know there are some, such as Miriam O'Callaghan, who are very interested in mental health, and I take my hat off to her for the wonderful "Prime Time" programme on this issue. The Minister of State was also on that programme and I admire and respect him for acknowledging there is still much to do. His words today were that he is sorry the reform of A Vision for Change has not been fully achieved. However, we are not even halfway through our term with that seven to ten-year programme and, hopefully, under the Minister of State's stewardship, it will be achieved.

As the Minister of State knows, one in four people will be affected by mental health issues throughout their lives. Whether we like it, this affects every one of us because one in four is a very large number. It will be somebody in my family, Senator Buttimer's family or the Minister of State's family - we will all be affected by it.

I am thrilled to hear the Minister of State say the community-based model is the way to go, which it of course is. I had occasion two years ago to visit a person in the psychiatric unit in Portlaoise in the Minister of State's constituency. I was amazed and proud that we could have such an excellent unit as the one in Portlaoise, which is in the grounds of and part of the general hospital, as opposed to the awfully antiquated place I knew of as a child. Growing up in Tullamore, I remember hearing that so-and-so is "in Portlaoise". People did not even mention the mental hospital; they simply said somebody was "in Portlaoise" and it was known where the person was.

The stigma surrounding mental health must be done away with. I have met people who are afraid to tell their employers or managers that they have mental health issues and are being treated for depression because they know it will not look good on their employment record. Such people have been penalised and victimised when they have told that they have mental health issues.

I ask the Minister of State to keep up the excellent work he is doing. People with mental health issues are very vulnerable and if anybody is to give them reassurance, he is the one to do so. I ask him to keep out there and to keep talking the way he has been talking. We might arrange for the Minister of State to come to the House to have this type of debate every quarter. We have been asking for this for a long time because there is never any harm in bringing issues to the fore from time to time.