Maire Devine (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

For more than one year, the Oireachtas Committee on the Future of Mental Health Care, of which I was a member, carried out a great deal of work investigating the services in place our country, identifying problems and potential solutions and holding the HSE, Department of Health and Government to account. The committee was dissolved in October 2018, following the publication of its final report. In truth, the committee was only at the beginning of its work. I have no doubt that the Minister of State, Deputy Catherine Byrne, shares my belief that the committee was valuable and shone a light on many important mental health issues that had previously been ignored or covered to an insufficient degree. It is essential that this and other work continues and expands over the coming months and years to facilitate the scrutiny of policy, develop new ideas and encourage debate and accountability.

I ask the Minister of State what is her stance on the re-establishment of the committee. The committee called consistently for a strong and robust implementation plan and its re-establishment would be a useful component of that work. In the context of the continuing crisis in mental health services, the failure to implement A Vision for Change and plans to introduce new legislation to overhaul the Mental Health Act 2001, this committee's role could not be more important. I await the Minister of State's response and hope I will hear positive news.