Marc MacSharry (Fianna Fail)

I join Members in welcoming the Minister of State to the House. I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak on the issue. I welcome the representatives of Clondalkin community action on suicide group. We received their paper and congratulate them on their work in suicide prevention.

There are many reasons for failure but there are no excuses. Collectively, the Houses of the Oireachtas have failed society on the prevention of suicide. The Minister of State said this issue cannot be spoken about or assessed enough in the search for answers to provide the help society needs to deal with suicide prevention and the wide variety of mental health issues. When I speak of failure I am not directing it at the Minister of State but at the collective because resources in this area are not sufficient for the work being carried out.

I am a novice to this issue in the sense that I have not spoken on it previously. In my research for the debate I learned a couple of small points. In other debates on more general mental health we have acknowledged some of the good elements within A Vision for Change and the individual projects and initiatives that have started in the mental health area, such as the positive advertisements on television and so on. We are great at writing reports, assessing the problem and what might be done, but we are not good at implementation.

Once we assess the problem and come up with a solution, we leave the report on the shelf assuming that by the time we next convene the work will have been carried out. Of course, one definition of stupidity is to continue saying the same thing and expect a different result. I think that is where we are at in the context of suicide prevention.

There is significant prejudice and discrimination against people with mental health issues or facing personal challenges which society stigmatise as negative. Members of these Houses are not immune from that level of prejudice or discrimination. A Millward Brown survey last year of Members highlighted that more than 60% of Members believed that people with mental health issues should not have children. Is it not shocking that the representatives of the people in Dáil and Seanad Éireann hold that view? It is indicative of the magnitude and scale of the problem that faces us. If this level of stigmatisation exists how can we begin to offer assistance to people? That is not to say that organisations such as Community Action on Suicide or the initiatives, the training, and the Assist and Jigsaw projects and the other initiatives are not worthwhile and making a contribution but they are fragmented and non-penetrative in getting around this problem so that real progress can be made. When one considers the magnitude of the problem and the results of the Millward Brown survey of Members which shows our approach to mental health and how we are prejudiced and discriminatory we are to mental health issues, it begs the question as to how Government, going back to 1984, can preside over such low levels of funding towards suicide prevention? The figure in 2011 was €9 million, I accept that €35 million will be provided for mental health services generally this year, but how much is allocated for suicide prevention? One of the things that struck me, which the Minister of State so rightly pointed out, is that the 2009 figure of 527 people, is the population of a small town. That figure was 24% up on the previous year. The provisional figures for 2010 are 486, but many groups say that the real figure is substantially greater; there are no figures yet for 2011.

The allocation of €9 million is disgracefully low in the context of what we are allocating to try to save lives. The Road Safety Authority is charged with saving lives and while this is a completely different issue, I think it is instructive to compare the level of resources and the approach that has been taken. They too had to deal with the numbers killed on our roads. In 2006, 368 people were killed on our roads. The Road Safety Authority has achieved a 59% reduction in the deaths on our roads since its establishment. The Road Safety Authority had a budget of €32 million in 2010. That budget of €32 million helped to save a significant number of lives. Senator Sheahan made a point on the Order of Business that the Road Safety Authority has been a great success. I remember when it was being founded, I was critical of Mr. Gay Byrne as being the person to head it up, and how wrong I was, in light of the exceptional job that organisation has done. The point is that the RSA is an integrated, cohesive national organisation with a joined up approach and resources of €32 million.

In making such a comparison, I am not trying to disenfranchise any of the groups working hard on the issue of suicide prevention throughout the country but I feel we need one national entity to deal with it. The issue of multi-disciplinary community mental health teams has been agreed and is national policy through consecutive Governments since 1984, yet they are still not established. Presumably that is a resource issue. This should be done as a matter of urgency. I reiterate that I do not doubt the Minister's personal commitment, but if it is a question of resources that is preventing these steps being taken, then pressure from all sides of the House must be brought to bear on Government, regardless of how scarce resources are throughout other Departments. The people who die from suicide and mental health issues are no less important than those killed on the roads.

When one compares the advertisement on television for road safety and mental health, I recall the mental health advertisement but not as much as the various advertisements for road safety. That is down to two issues, resources and the fact that a national authority is focused exclusively on the issue of road safety.

I would like to see the destigmatisation of mental health issues. We have a serious problem with prejudices. One in 20 people will have suicidal thoughts throughout our lives, and one in four of us will suffer from mental health issues. Is it really the view of Members that 25% of people should not have children? A Vision for Change includes many good ideas, but we need to take an integrated approach to mental health and provide adequate resources and destigmatise mental health issues.

I wish the Minister well and I hope she will take some of these observations on board. Some people in the Gallery are from organisations dealing with mental health issues and their views are important. What I wish to highlight is the need to provide adequate resources and to take an overall integrated approach and to undertake a public education campaign starting from the beginning of secondary school right through to destigmatise mental health issues, because they are as common as the common cold. People who suffer from these ailments are entitled to the full resources of the State in assisting them to deal with their difficulties.