Rónán Mullen (Independent)

Ba mhaith liom fáilte a chur roimh an Aire who I acknowledge speaks with great credibility on this issue. Everyone appreciates the work he is doing. It is clear that a lot of good work is being done.

I also compliment Senator Corrigan on what she has just said because it is something on which I also intend to dwell. What she has said about negative messages in the public service media and public debate is important and something I wish to address. We have a serious problem in that regard. Politicians are sometimes afraid to raise the issue because they fear they will be accused of trying to cover up their own failures or wrongdoings or closing down debate on accountability in society.

It is all the more to Senator Corrigan's credit that she raised the issue, since we must insist on a higher quality of public debate. We must find an appropriate balance that allows for the necessary interrogation of public policy, Government decision making and the mistakes of the past, that is, the necessary search for accountability, while not destroying the potential for the uplifting of people's spirits. The media has many questions to answer in this regard.

I have had the good fortune never to have suffered from depression. That said, I went through a difficult period during my first year and a half of college. One might call it growing pains. I experienced something that came close to depression and it took me ages to settle down. My mother told me I should get out, do something for someone else and get involved in a voluntary organisation because, if I did, I would realise how much I had to be thankful for. I recount this with trepidation as I know that there is a great danger in the snap-out-of-it mentality. That is not what I mean to suggest. Mental health difficulties must be taken seriously, so one person advocating positivity when another is experiencing dark times and suffering can do great damage.

Undoubtedly, our society must discuss whether we are living sufficiently for others or whether the individualism that has crept into our community life and our country in recent years has contributed partly to this problem. When conversing with another Senator, he mentioned how mental health does not seem to suffer in war time because people are more cohesive and have a common enemy and a shared sense of struggle. In times of economic recession, people might suffer too much in silence and believe their problems are unique to them. This situation might be made all the worse if our society has lost the habit of its members depending on and living for one another.

The great Viktor Frankl, with whom many people would be familiar and who wrote the book Man's Search for Meaning, quoted the philosopher Nietzsche when reflecting on how some people in Auschwitz coped well with their suffering while others became rather bestial in their behaviour towards one another. That quote is: "He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how." The person who has a reason to live, be it religious faith, a deep religious or spiritual sense of the ultimate meaning of our existence, the love of a family member or a great professional or vocational project, is much better able to cope with the sufferings and challenges of life, especially those found in exceptional times such as those in which we live.

For this reason, I welcomed many of the Minister of State's remarks. For example, I welcomed his mention of breaking down stigma and the work of Sea Change. I had the good fortune of speaking at the recent awards ceremony of the Lundbeck Art Against Stigma project. People experiencing mental health problems created works of art, including paintings and sculptures. It was uplifting to be among such people and their professional supporters, loved ones and families. Breaking down stigma is important, as is the emphasis on the problems of discrimination and social attitudes. However, it is not enough. Some of the most important words in the Minister of State's speech were his statement of how it was particularly important that we watch out for one another.

We must get to a new point in society at which we not just reflect on our problems as individuals but also revert to thinking as a community about the challenges we face and our responsibilities to one another. I am encouraged by the work of the Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training, ASIST, workshops, which have trained 18,000 people to help. We have often heard stories about people saying they did not know, had no hint of it or did not recognise the problems. That resources are being used to prepare people to spot problems and look out for others by helping them towards supports and strategies is excellent.

It is important to recognise the good work being done by various private sector bodies, for example, Headstrong. I had the positive experience of attending some events organised by Ms Violet Gavin and Positive Mental Health in Galway. Her good work, arising out of her long experience of life, is about going into schools to get peers to mentor their fellow students and to involve them in group discussions on matters they would not normally discuss with one another. What a wonderful civic contribution this work represents. It is an attempt to try to ensure people's happiness and positive mental health by getting students of psychology or related areas in college to give of their free time by visiting schools and leading debates.

We cannot ignore the statistics. Where suicide is concerned, the statistics of the past two years seem to suggest that the situation is much the same. Some 104 deaths by suicide were registered in the first quarter of 2010 whereas 106 were registered in the same period in 2009. We are trending along the middle range compared with other European states, but this is not the complete picture. The link between suicide, recession and financial hardship is irrefutable and the link between unemployment and suicide is indisputable. The live register figures are constantly rising. The Minister of State cited a 24% increase in suicide figures since 2008. I have spoken to a psychiatrist friend and no one will be surprised to hear the anecdotal evidence, not just of suicide, but of people who have attempted suicide or self-harm presenting. A serious problem, it can be directly linked with the economic recession and the challenges we are facing.

It is somewhat like the nature versus nurture debate. Some people will face mental health challenges because of their genes or personal circumstances, but a significant part of the problem undoubtedly relates to society's anti-nurturing nature. The challenges our society faces make matters worse for people. Therefore, we must be wary of how expenditure cuts might have a profoundly negative effect on people's health. This issue must be tackled.

Economic concerns seem insignificant when we consider the bigger picture. Our collective and individual health must be the utmost priority of Government policy. I am not quite clear on the Government's plans in respect of psychiatric nurses, so I am anxious that there be an exemption from cuts and certainly no disproportionate cuts in the area of mental health staff. As a Galway man, I welcome the improvements in Ballinasloe with 50 community nursing units and 25 day places.

We must consider the greater causes of mental health difficulties. We must examine honestly how family breakdowns and changed family experiences affect people's lives. We must also examine how our culture contributes. Our media is either too serious or too flippant. We need a media that can interrogate the challenges and problems of the day while helping people to find positivity. There will need to be a proper accounting by church and State bodies for past mistakes, but the media must be careful not to destroy the sources of hope in people's lives. I refer not just to sources of spiritual hope but also a sense of the meaning of life that is vital to people's well-being. According to experts in psychiatry and psychology, with a decline in religious belief and practice goes a greater likelihood of mental health suffering and difficulty. I do not want to make a separate case, but the spiritual dimension of life must be addressed. It is important for the media to take account of this and to help people to find sources of hope in the same way it asks hard questions of the Government and public agencies.

We must not have our media driving people into an individualistic, selfish, mé féin mentality where they focus only on how they are likely to be affected by problems but must develop a communitarian response to the challenges we face. We will have to ask the hard questions of our media but we will only be able to ask those questions credibly if we invite the media into a dialogue rather than throw brick-bats at them for what they will perceive as a privilege and a self-interested place in public life.

Go mo leithscéal as dul thar fóir ó thaobh mo chuid ama de agus, b'fhéidir, an méid a dúirt mé.