Fiona O'Loughlin (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

"What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality." Never a truer set of words were said. Being in politics, and I am sure it is the same for many of us, we all at times struggle with self-doubt and struggle in dealing with the impact of social media and other aspects on ourselves. There is a complete onus on us to protect our own mental health and that of the nation. The impact of Covid-19 has been huge on so many levels but the impact on mental health has been absolutely incredible. I listened yesterday to some of the mental health professionals when they spoke to the Special Committee on Covid-19 Response about what they are seeing now and the increase of more than 200% in calls they get to their services, which is very alarming. Many of these calls for help come from people who are under the age of 20. On my way to the House this morning I listened to my local radio station, KFM, and heard representatives from Samaritans Ireland talking about the impact of Covid-19 on mental health and that they are getting calls every 39 seconds.Three quarters of those calls are from men, many of whom are middle aged. We have a public health crisis. We do not want to have a mental health crisis as well. Far more needs to be done in terms of protecting where people are and ensuring that we do not have a tsunami down the line. Psychologists talk about the slow-burn effect after a traumatic experience, which is what we have all been through. Sometimes people can initially cope but down the line there is a significant impact on them. We have to identify the measures that need to be put in place.

For young people under 20, we must imagine what their world is like. Every single thing has been impacted upon - getting summer jobs, being able to travel - maybe going abroad on a J1 visa or having their leaving certificate holiday - and not knowing how they are going to cope in terms of college and apprenticeships. We need to invest more in Jigsaw and organisations like it. I had been working on having one delivered in Newbridge during the lifetime of the previous Dáil. I hope we can have an engagement with the Minister on that.