Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

While I should apologise for being the last to speak, on an issue like this I believe it is always important to listen. I will start by laying out the stall. I greatly appreciate this issue being on the agenda at this time of year because Christmas is a particularly difficult time for people who have problems with their mental health. It probably has something to do with the dark nights, the long evenings and all the rest or perhaps it arises from the expectation that everyone is meant to be happy at this time of the year, while some people are not. Equally however, if Members continue to state that nothing has changed, the service is appalling and there is no one out there to help, how does one then get the message out to people telling them to seek help if they have difficulty with their mental health? This is a difficulty and one cannot simply continue to do what has been done in respect of mental health. I keep telling people the issue is different. It is not the type of debate in which one can go at it hammer and tongs, kick it around the floor and then expect it to get up afterwards and continue along its merry way. One can do that with some issues such as finances and with education and transport in some instances but mental health is different. I am convinced the script Members are now receiving will not be the speech I will give. However, they should keep it, as it will make good bedtime reading.

Senator Barrett referred to the media and their gloom and doom attitude and I believe Members are inclined to buy into it. I would also make this point were I in opposition, but mental health is different and Members cannot continue to tell people the service has not changed and that nothing is happening and then expect them to seek help. This is because people who are vulnerable and have difficulty with their mental health at any time actually do listen to Members. They take in what they are saying and I would hate to give them the wrong message. I will provide Members with the figures regarding the posts later, which are fairly comprehensive. I have just about had it with different organisations and when I challenged one as to from where exactly it was getting its information, its spokesperson just replied that it was out there. What does that mean? One would imagine that organisations that are listened to by the Government and by society in general would conduct a little research but that is not happening. This also is an issue that worries me.

What can I say to Senator Mullins? I sat here listening to him and I take on board everything he said about Ballinasloe. I accept that times are difficult for politicians in that locality at present. Moreover, I understand that people in the area who deal with the service or who have relations and families who do so are nervous and live in trepidation in respect of the service. I now wish to deal with the points made by Senator Crown in that respect. The only guarantee I can give him about the gap about which people worry regarding the transition from the old to the new is to point to what has been done in other areas. Precisely the same steps were taken in Clonmel with St. Luke's hospital as are proposed in Ballinasloe. Moreover, the same resistance was encountered but anyone who lives in Clonmel and the greater Tipperary area will tell one they now have a better service. The aforementioned hospital in Clonmel has been closed but alternatives are available when people need to be hospitalised. I agree entirely that people will need to be hospitalised and equally, at times there will be a need for medication. Even the most progressive of psychiatrists and psychologists will tell one there are points at which people become so distressed that one cannot get through to them with talking therapies and it therefore is necessary to medicate them to ensure the best possible impact.

These are not new to me. These are things I discuss every day when it comes to mental health. We need to be clear about it. However, it is not only about that service. People who have a difficulty with their mental health do not only live in a mental health box, they live in society like the rest of us. They live across a range, like all of us.

I know this is something in which Senator Moran will have a particular interest. Yesterday, I launched an e-learning site for the HSE. It is now available to every practitioner within the HSE. It is a service for people with intellectual disability and mental health problems. It was developed with the assistance of six service users who have an intellectual disability and who are availing of a mental health service. It is most accessible. There is no longer a need for a person to come to Dublin to get training. It is possible to tap into it anywhere because it is based on e-learning. We are doing that type of thing all the time. In the morning I will launch a website and information booklet on dementia. We are hoping to launch the dementia strategy in the first quarter of next year. It is across a range. It is not only the medicalised model that we are dealing with, although I emphasise that the medicalised model is expanding in terms of therapies and so on.

We should remember where we have come from. We started off with 22,000 people in long-stay institutions at a time when our prison population, as Senator Bacik, rightly, pointed out, was approximately 4,000. The morality of it is one thing, but how could we sustain that? It was not possible to sustain it. I do not care what anyone says although I recognise what Senators Barrett and Gilroy said about people with mental health difficulties in institutions over a long period. However, some people in there over a long period have no difficulties with their mental health and we should start acknowledging that as well. There is a range of how we deal with these matters and the attitudes. The Senator's point about the attitude is correct. I have no wish for people to move out of the big institution only to go into a small institution. That is not what this is about. It is about attitude. Jack Straw once said that he could not legislate for attitudes and that is a fact. However, he went on to say that he could legislate to ensure one person's attitude does not detrimentally affect another's. It is about that as well as being about a mindset and changing. It is also about ensuring that if a person has a difficulty with her mental health and if it is acute, then she need not necessarily go to the service because the service will come to her.

Senator Gilroy will be interested in this point. The fact that he lives in Glanmire means that he has a community-based 24 hour seven day mental health team. It is excellent.