Susan O'Keeffe (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I ask the Minister of State not to apologise. We are delighted she spoke at the end. As she said the value is in listening. It has been a thoughtful and constructive conversation. I welcome the cross-party support. As Senator Marc MacSharry said, this is a subject in which we all have an interest and it is above politics. As a member of the cross-party committee on mental health I am glad to have tabled the motion as part of the commitment of that group to keep mental health before us. I know Senator Power said we have been here talking and we have talked but, in fact, we must keep talking because it is about change, as she pointed out, changing the culture and changing our own attitudes. Every time one of us stands up to speak we will mention it to somebody else or somebody else will listen. We cannot change the situation in the way the Road Safety Authority has changed because traffic accidents are a much more straightforward area, albeit, extremely difficult for those who have lost somebody or have been injured. In this case the complexity of mental health is such an enormous area.

Today we have tried to see where the progress has been made. Most, if not all, of us would agree that enormous progress has been made, it is just that the road is such a long one. Senator MacSharry pointed out that the dots are not joined up. I would argue that when this Government came into office, apart from A Vision for Change, even finding some of the dots was a challenge and finding the resources to find the dots to start joining them up is a challenge. After two-and-a-half years we begin to see that some of the dots are being joined up. Of course, there is always an impatience. As soon as we say "Let us change it", we actually want it to be changed tomorrow but we know that we cannot do that. Each of those pieces, putting in the app, talking to the GPs, changing how volunteers come forward and how they interact, reducing the incidence of suicide, talking to young people, takes an incredibly long time.

Certainly we feel a momentum and that we have moved away from what Senator Barrett described as the shameful legacy of incarceration. All of us probably know of somebody who was incarcerated in some way, shape or form. We were a nation who felt happy to lock people up. The process will take an incredible amount of time. The momentum, energy and will exists to address this. Even the figures that the Minister of State has given and that she checked and double-checked put to rest those arguments about whether recruitment was taking place. It is welcome that we can say that the work is being done. We all have to be patient but we have to keep the conversation going. Ultimately, there is still that default about physical health being the most important thing. We know why that has happened but it is up to each and every one of us to change that into a society where the health of our mind and our body are equal. Until we do that and can then perhaps change that poor relation status, and it is changing, each and every one of us has a responsibility. The Minister of State can legislate, as can other Ministers, and we can legislate until we fall over but unless we take responsibility for the mental health of our own country and say we have a responsibility, we have a role to play, it will not change. I am delighted that each and every one of us here this evening has made yet another contribution to that debate which will and must carry on. I thank the Minister of State for her support.