Niall Ó Brolcháin (Green Party)

Yes, we were. Let us hope it can continue. Meditation is important. An over-reliance on tobacco, drugs or alcohol is not good. I am sure the Licensed Vintners Association will not be happy to hear me say that. It is important to focus on what is good. We should be counting our blessings. Many people in this country are stressed and fearful of the recession. While many people are badly affected by this recession, many others are not but are getting caught up in the stress associated with it.

Like other Senators, I too would like to refer to the media. During the boom, when we borrowed a great deal of money which we now have to pay back, we had a wonderful dynamic in that we were constantly hearing on the radio estate agents telling us the boom would go on forever, it was a great time to buy and that while the boom would peak there would be no dip in house prices and that the worst that could happen would be that prices would level off. Why were the media constantly engaging with estate agents? The positive cheer leading of that time has been replaced by absolute negativity, with economists now being invited onto the radio, each trying to outdo the other in terms of stating how bad things are going to get. A newspaper recently quoted that we owe €250 billion, or a quarter of a trillion, to the European Central Bank. Where will all of this stop? All sorts of figures are being thrown about which are frightening people. I am not suggesting these matters should not be reported on, rather that they should be responsibly reported with both sides of the balance sheet being recorded. Balance is important.

Another phenomenon is that of group think on websites such as www.politics.ie where many people who are wound up to 90 are writing all types of vitriolic things. Those involved are purporting to be people representing society. However bad our public broadcaster is, sites such as www.boards.ie or www.politics.ie are creating hysteria in terms of their content in regard to how bad things are and how badly people are being hammered. That is not good for mental health.

In terms of our public service broadcaster, I am not suggesting that RTE start broadcasting nature programmes, play soothing music or show pictures of rabbits and so on. That is not RTE's job in terms of current affairs. Its job is to report the truth but the key is that it gets the balance right and I believe it is very much swayed currently in terms of hysteria and talking ourselves into a state of panic. That is not good for the mental health of our people, especially our children.

The key aspect of which we as adults should always be aware is that the mental health of children is affected by the various negative comments being made. I appreciate the Acting Chairman has been very generous, as she was to the other speakers. We must take special care of our children in this very difficult time.