Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I commend Social Justice Ireland on the critique and analysis it carried out in respect of the budget. The subhead of the analysis is very telling: "Budget betrays the vulnerable as many left further behind". That about sums up the budget. I want to talk about two such examples of people being left behind. The first is timely in the sense that Mental Health Day is on 10 October. The Government announced €39 million extra for mental health services. On the face of it, that sounds okay but the reality is that only €14 million of this is new money because €25 million was announced in last year's budget and then withheld. We see this with a lot of these figures. As one has time to analyse the headline figures, one sees that they do not reflect the reality of the allocations at all. While the total mental health spend has increased in recent years, most of the money has been swallowed up by pre-existing services just trying to meet large increases in demand. Mental health funding will only increase if we look at the budget from yesterday in the context of how it affects rural communities in particular. They may seem like small amounts, but the costs associated with the carbon tax and other measures increase the financial imposition on people. The worry associated with the cost of heating a home and the lack of rural transport, which can lead to individuals feeling even more isolated, affect people's mental health. This lack of transport leads to people not being able to connect with their communities, get to hospital appointments, etc. There needs to be further investment into those areas but also in terms of mental health services.

Every day of the week, people with severe mental health problems are let out of acute hospitals and we know what the outcome is for many of them. Nearly everybody sitting in this Chamber knows of individuals to whom that has happened. It is the fault of the revolving door system. When mental health patients present at accident and emergency departments and have to wait for hours upon hours, they sometimes leave without ever being assessed. Others are assessed and may be kept in for a day or two or kept on a trolley and then are let out into the community again without any real access to care. Six months later, they are given follow-up appointments with counsellors. Unfortunately, many of them may not be with us six months later. That is the reality. That is why mental health needed to be addressed in a very serious way in this budget. We have again failed the people who have mental health challenges.