Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I have no issue with the Cathaoirleach's very dignified handling of the matter. The point I want to make is that however we might feel about Nigel Farage, we should be able to criticise those who throw milkshakes at a politician and that however we might feel about President Donald Trump, we should be able to hope that during his visit the protests will be dignified. My point is that, as politicians, we are expected to set an example. Where we divide on issues and divide deeply as we sometimes must, we must try to set an example by being as civil as possible to one another and conduct our debates in a humane and civilised way. If we do not, we will be doomed to a future of Trumpian politics. There is an onus on all of us to raise our game, even at this time when perhaps we feel we are being provoked the most.

I raise the issue of mental health services which, as we all know, are at crisis point. Listening to Dr. Quinlan from Cork talk today about the anecdotal information focuses the mind on the reality. It could involve the parents of a child who has attempted to commit suicide bringing him or her to the GP, the GP referring them to the emergency department, the emergency department sending them home having made an appointment to see a psychiatrist some weeks later, further attempts at self-harm, desperate contact being made with CAMHS and the parents eventually feeling that they are being forced to go private to get the help their child urgently needs. We know that this has been happening for a long time and the question we must ask is why psychiatry and mental health services have repeatedly been the bridesmaid or the victims of cuts that have to be made.In 2016 the then Minister for Health, now the Taoiseach, said he would divert €12 million from the mental health budget to compensate for shortfalls in other areas of medicine. That money had been set aside to improve 24-hour psychiatric services. The same thing had happened previously in 2012. We do not know what happened to the moneys that accrued from the sale of psychiatric institutions. That windfall was supposed to be put aside to develop mental health services. The percentage of the health budget spent on mental health is now 6.6%. That is half the percentage it was in the 1980s. Last year the spend on mental health was 10% less than it had been in 2009. The Deputy Leader and the Cathaoirleach will know that we are 250 psychiatric consultants short of the number we need. I heard the Minister of State, Deputy Jim Daly, talk about the Europe-wide crisis in filling consultancy posts. I feel for him in his position because one person cannot solve this problem. The fact is that this is against a background of extreme neglect in the spend on mental health. We lag behind countries such as Romania, Slovakia and Greece, although I do not wish to stigmatise what we would regard as poorer countries, in the number of consultants we employ. We are the third lowest in the European Union in terms of the bed capacity per 100,000 of population. There is an immediate problem but there is a long historical background in terms of the neglect of funding of mental health services that needs to be addressed.