Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for his response. I thank Senator Freeman for seconding the motion and Senators Colm Burke, Black, Norris and Boyhan for their contributions. I thank especially Mental Health Reform and all those who are active in agitating and lobbying for a better quality of mental health services in this country. I do not wish to single out Mental Health Reform as our leading national coalition of organisations campaigning to transform mental health and well-being supports. I wish to note some of the excellent contributions and I acknowledge what Senator Colm Burke had to say. He always has the unenviable task of defending Government policy, which he does very faithfully, but it would be unfair to him to leave it at that because he did point out some of the challenges that are definitely there. He mentioned that there is no immediate support for people who have not been assessed by a psychiatrist. You could sing that. It was also very important he mentioned people with mental health problems who are non-nationals and have no family support. Senator Black referred to her work with the RISE Foundation, and I am very grateful she mentioned her experience of asylum seekers and people in direct provision coming before the justice committee. Senator Norris always finds a way to say something very memorable. He pointed out that most children get more pocket money than we give to asylum seekers. Senator Boyhan properly paid tribute to Mr. Justice Bryan McMahon and others.

I know the Minister of State will not take this comment personally but I recall, I think it was in the 1980s, Ronald Regan sitting down with Mikhail Gorbachev and starting off his commentary in the presence of the media by saying, "Let me tell you why we do not trust you." It is not the Minister of State personally I am talking about here, but let me tell him why we do not trust Government responses such as the one he has given. It is long on history, analysis and purported explanation, but when I see a ministerial speech that talks up and finds the positive spin on statistics but which is not at the same time honest about what are manifest shortcomings in the system, I really worry because I get the impression - it is hard not to - that we are being spun a line. I ask the Minister of State to accept that he has not directly expressed support for the seven deliverables mentioned in the motion that Senator Boyhan rightly went through. I ask the Minister of State to take the opportunity, before we break up today, to do so.

I will give an example of what I am talking about in terms of the statistical analysis in which the Minister of State engages. He talks about the number of consultants, for example. It is beyond dispute that Ireland has half the number of consultants per 100,000 population of the EU average. We rank below countries such as Romania, Slovakia and Greece in this regard. We have less than a quarter of the number of consultants Finland employs. The Minister of State cannot explain this away simply by reference to the fact that there are different systems in different countries because it is psychiatrists themselves who are pointing out the starkness of this problem. It was Professor Patricia Casey who said such an argument was preposterous and inconceivable - those are the terms she used - in pointing to the grave shortage and deficit in posts being filled, not just psychiatric consultancy posts, but also psychologists, social workers and occupational therapists. It is right to point out that we have moved to a community-based system but it is wrong not to acknowledge that there are severe shortages. There is no sense of urgency, worry or acknowledgement in the speech of the problems that are there. What I am getting is a massaging of statistics in order to put the best possible léamh ar an scéal, but that is not good enough given the real human suffering. Only recently I was listening to a GP in Cork talk about persons attempting suicide, going into accident and emergency departments, being sent home with an appointment with a psychiatrist some weeks hence and then further attempting self-harm, forcing the family to go private in order to get the urgent care required. That is the system as it is now affecting real people, and the problem this presents to us as a society needs to come across much more in ministerial speeches.

I thank my colleagues for what they have said. I would greatly appreciate it if there were a much clearer and franker acceptance that there are real problems and that they cannot just be wished away by taking the most optimistic view of comparative statistics. We are not where we should be, and mental health services in particular are the poor relation because twice the budget has been raided. The money that was to accrue from the sale of psychiatric institutions was supposed to benefit mental health services. As far as I know, this did not happen. The €12 million that Deputy Varadkar when Minister for Health said he was taking from the budget in 2016 was supposed to improve 24-7 mental health services.Time and again it seems to me that mental health services have been treated as the poor relation in order to fill gaps. We must shudder at the consequences of the overspend on the children's hospital for mental health services as well as other important areas that need public funding. I am sorry to say I am not satisfied with the Minister of State's response although I appreciate the difficult position he is in personally.