Maire Devine (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State and thank all Senators for their passionate speeches and statements on mental health. Mental health, according to the World Health Organization, is the most important public health issue. Even every poor society must afford to promote, protect and invest in it. Mental illness is the world's most neglected disease and the leading cause of disability worldwide. Anyone, as previous speakers have said, can experience it. Depression and anxiety are very common conditions and affect almost half a million people in this country. One in four of us will be affected by depression at some point in our lives and, tragically, each year several hundred people take their lives, sending grief and shockwaves rippling out to family, friends and communities forever affected.

We are a society in distress and we have a moral responsibility to demand resources to guarantee the provision of a modern mental health system to meet today's needs. Public demand has never been so high. Since the establishment of the State, all Governments have failed miserably in this regard. They have no comprehension of mental distress and appear not to possess compassion, and "compassion" is a word we need to use repeatedly. We lauded yesterday A Vision for Change, which takes us from the antiquated, Victorian era. Instead, Governments have used it as a fiscal scalp to cut services without any community replacements.

Many reports by the Mental Health Commission and Mental Health Reform rage against the failure of mental health services, and yesterday saw the launch of a wonderful document by the Psychiatric Nurses Association, PNA, and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, RCSI, in Buswells Hotel. I hope the Minister has a copy and goes through it. It details the failure of A Vision for Change and the stark fact that the budget was drastically reduced from 14% to a measly 6%. This is unpardonable and inexcusable. Of the recommendations in A Vision for Change, 75% have not been implemented. Regarding inpatient bed status, A Vision for Change was to seek community replacement of inpatient facilities. Figures from the report show that in 1984, there were 12,500 inpatient beds, whereas in 2004 the figure went down to 4,000 and in 2015 to 1,600. The percentage drop from 2004 to 2015 is 60%. The budget was drastically reduced at the same time. This document speaks of broken promises and heartbreak throughout the country. Mental health has always been the Cinderella of the health services but it needs to be at the top of the agenda in every Government's decision and policy-making. It needs to be a central focus of our health policy.

I applaud and congratulate community groups and families. They are standing up and are innovators in the vanguard leading the fightback to inform communities and demand the provision of appropriate care and understanding for those in their communities who are in distress. They are the mental health advocates and warriors and are challenging attitudes and changing lives.

We do not need any further reviews. We need implementation. We have reviews coming out our ears, so to speak. We all know what needs to be implemented. The will is needed to do so, and I hope the Minister of State will work with us all in this regard.

On the issue of stigma, to which the Minister of State alluded in her speech, one hopeful thing was See Change's Green Ribbon campaign, which was fantastic and really well done. It started a conversation. If people wear the green ribbon, they are open, they want to talk about mental health and they want to disperse the stigma. The research that See Change has done over recent years has shown that people are much more comfortable discussing mental health, so we just need to keep that going. In addition, last week in the Mansion House there was a fantastic community-initiated report on suicide and its effects on communities and families in the Dublin 8 area. I would love the Minister to invite the South West Inner City Network to present that report. I would like the to be brought in here, but also to be part of the youth group that the Minister of State wants to pull together. They speak from the heart. It is a community initiative. They are not professionals. They are concerned with the matter on the ground, and Dublin 8 has seen its fair share of pain and grief. Their report mostly speaks of the love that they have for the people they have lost.

I welcome the Minister's report and the postgraduate course to try to convert some of our nurses into specialist psychiatric nurses. We need to tackle the concerns of the student nurses. Their intake is 300-odd a year, with drop-outs, yet there are 1,000 vacant posts this year and we will spend 15 years trying to catch up to provide nurses to care for families in distress.