Seanad debates

Thursday, 24 November 2016

Mental Health Services Funding: Statements

 

10:30 am

Photo of Maire DevineMaire Devine (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State back to the House. She spoke about a review and she knows how I feel about reviews. The review was done adequately and very professionally by the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and my union, the Psychiatric Nurses Association, and released in July. Knowledge is no good unless it is followed by action. I implore the Minister of State to forget reviews, but I think I am battling against the wind.

Funding for mental health in this country has always been inadequate. It is just over 6% here, whereas it is 14% in Britain and the North. We have gone from 13% ten years ago to just over 6% now. The impact of the €35 million is not being felt. I highlight my frustration and desperation in addressing the issue of funding. We tried to get 24-7 crisis intervention to be taken seriously in this House and in the Dáil. Since the formation of the Government, Sinn Féin twice introduced a motion and on both occasions Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil voted down the 24-7 measures we sought.It was voted down in the face of two groups, one from the Liberties and one from Cork, which we had invited to the Gallery. Both groups were families and community groups who had lost their children or loved ones through suicide and had gone through that trauma and were trying to recover from it. It is heartbreaking for them. It felt like a slap in the face when both the Government and Opposition voted it down.

In the 2017 budget, €35 million was announced in new funding. Like other community and advocacy groups, Sinn Féin welcomes the measure as a positive step in implementing A Vision for Change. As a previous, and perhaps future, front-line worker, along with my psychiatry and nursing colleagues, I know this €35 million is being rehashed and promised every year. We never saw it on the ground. Perhaps we will see €15 million of it this year. The extra fund is coming to €15 million. It is an added investment of only 1.8% in new developments for mental health compared to the 2016 budget. This is unforgivable. I would like the Minister of State to directly respond on this point and tell us why this €35 million was masked as €35 million in new funds. The Government is doing nothing to address the sheer neglect of mental health going back decades. The pitiful investments of new funds such as these will do nothing to address the crisis among our communities across the island.

I do not want to play politics with the issue. The people who are dying and crying out for help day after day do not want politics played. They want support, services and to get better. What is it going to take? How can we get 24-7 crisis intervention rolled out? I admire the Minister of State's bravery in taking on the role and the responsibility, given her family's trauma. I recognise her determination to do her best to ensure the services are introduced. However, it is not happening. How can we put billions of euro into banks and millions of euro into water, but cannot find resources to prevent our people dying because they cannot see hope? What brick walls are preventing this? Is there resistance within the power of Fine Gael? Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil can do it. We will support whoever brings this forward, in the interest of nation, our people, families, loved ones and communities.

This morning, on national media, did Fianna Fáil's leader, Deputy Micheál Martin, commit to 24-7 services? I did not hear it. If it is true, I welcome it and I urge the Fianna Fáil Members to talk to their leader and ensure it happens without delay. We need to see the strength of the measures Fianna Fáil is proposing. If they will improve what is on offer, Fianna Fáil can count on our support and we can advance further.

Mental health is the most significant issue facing Ireland and the world, as referenced by the World Health Organization, WHO. Mental health affects housing, education, employment, family life and substance abuse, among many other aspects of life. Let us get this right. The Minister of State must go back to the Taoiseach and the Minister for Health, Deputy Simon Harris, and plead for funding to implement 24-7 crisis intervention. We can then further the other elements of A Vision for Change, over 70% of which have not been implemented. We could do it together on an all-party basis or, even better, an all-Ireland basis. My colleague, Ms Michelle O'Neill, has been in contact and we established an all-Ireland mental well-being initiative. Let us improve the health of our nation and stop the pitiful funding we provide for mental health and the perception that we are saying it is terrible but are not going to do anything about it.

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