Colette Kelleher (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted to second Senator Joan Freeman's motion on 24-hour access to mental health services. I support this motion and I am very much informed and driven by my eight years of experience working for the Cork Simon community. Access to 24-hour mental health services was a major pressure point for those who were looking for support and also for the staff who were trying to handle and cope with people who were in very distressed situations and seeking support outside 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. hours. Homelessness is a factual situation but it is also a label that covers a multitude. Many of the people who sought support from Cork Simon community were certainly roofless and often penniless and friendless. Addiction and mental ill-health loomed large in people’s lives. Considering the life histories of people, one would not be surprised of that. Only last night I listened to a young woman, Caroline, tell her story as part of a Cork Simon action research project. One can listen to her story, as told directly by Caroline herself, and it is available on Twitter. It is well worth listening to. I shall speak some of her words for the House:

I never really had a childhood. My mother and father were both heroin addicts. There was an awful lot of fighting and violence as well in the house. A lot of death threats, hanging ropes left outside the door. There were plenty of times when food wasn’t even in the house. My Dad was always in and out. Mam was also locked up. They were on and off, on and off. My Mam would throw us all - me and my brothers and my sister - into the car up to her cousin's house, but they’d be all smoking heroin. My Dad would be on to her "The kids need to be at home, going to school, bring them back down." And we’d go back down and they’d get back together again. I would have been verbally abused by my father for it, for sticking up for her. If there was a fight kicking off I’d have to go with her, with my Mam, because I’d get the backlash from my Dad if I wasn’t gone. Before we went to care I was saying it to my Mam. Like she was going out at 9 o'clock at night and she wasn’t coming in till the next morning. And I was there on my own with a new-born baby, a two year old and my sister who was eight. I used to be saying to her "we are going to be taken". The hardest part of it was when we were taken. The four of us were put into an emergency foster home together, and then after the weekend was up, the social worker came and took the two boys. That was the hardest.

We can only imagine the stress and strains of Caroline’s young life and what would have brought her, in the end, to Cork Simon. People do not neatly turn up Monday to Friday between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Caroline and others like her could turn up at any time during the day or night. I remember clearly one Christmas Eve when a woman in her nightie, in a state of complete distress, turned up to the emergency shelter where they did the best they could. It is, however, not the place for somebody with mental health issues. It is a roof but not the place. It is not just that they are homeless; they are often in a state of mental distress. Workers would do their best to keep the person safe until Monday or until the Christmas holidays had finished, when the official mental health services resumed.

During the recent Seanad public consultations on child mental health, very ably chaired by Senator Freeman, the Oireachtas Library and Research Service summary paper shows the record number of submissions received. I believe it was the highest number ever received to any public consultation.This reflects public concern about the issue. Among the submissions, the most commonly mentioned gap in services was the lack of emergency services available to children in crisis. People like Louise Walsh gave powerful testimony at the hearing when she described her "brainy boy", a 17 year old whose mental health broke down after the sudden death of his father. In Louise's words, her son could not cope with life or school and was suffering with severe depression brought on by grief after losing his dad. She stated:

I took some time off and brought him to the doctor. The doctor rang the nurses on the 24-hour helpline but he was too young to be helped... He was put on anti-psychotic drugs, not suitable for under 18s.

These drugs can trigger suicide. Louise's son had several more emergency episodes. Without access to a 24-hour mental health service, his episodes involved gardaí in squad cars, ambulances, flashing lights and accident and emergency departments, a scenario that was also described by Senator Freeman. Louise said her fit and healthy son was supposed to line out and play a hurling match the following day but instead was brought in on a stretcher and wheeled, in a catatonic state, from the ambulance into the emergency department.

Caroline, Louise's son, the people whose cases Senator Freeman described and other vulnerable persons with difficult lives not of their making need organisations such as Cork Simon community. They also need access to mental health support on a 24-hour basis. The Simon Community, Women's Aid, Barnardos and the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children are putting their fingers in the dam because this service is not available. For all of the people in need, I fully and wholeheartedly support Senator Freeman’s motion that Seanad Éireann, recognising the shortfalls in 24-hour access to mental health services, resolves to ensure that resources in the health budget are allocated to ensure comprehensive 24-hour access to mental health services, including weekend and out-of-hours services. I hope the Minister will respond positively to the motion and that we can look forward to a good day for people in need of 24-hour mental health services when the budget is announced next week.