Róisín Garvey (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I may not need a full eight minutes. I congratulate the Minister. He has an onerous task ahead of him so he had better roll up his sleeves. His role is a poisoned chalice which has been passed around over the years. Luckily, he has some good connections with Clare so we will do all we can for him.

I welcome the Bill. There are some very interesting and useful things in it. It will be really good for children in general and the increased threshold for those over 70 is good. A really important idea which the Department of Health and the new Minister need to consider is that of prevention rather than cure which not only saves the State loads of money but leads to people feeling happier and healthier, both physically and mentally. We have seen this during the Covid crisis. Many people discovered nature, walking and cycling and this made them feel happier in themselves. That has been wanting for a long time.

I have worked full-time on behavioural change with respect to sustainable transport with the Green-Schools programme and I have often struggled when working outside of schools because of the lack of access to any safe facilities, even a 500 m stretch of safe road. I encourage the Minister to work with the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport and the Department of Education and Skills in this regard. It is really important that physical education be maintained in the curriculum right up to the leaving certificate. People need to be physically active at all ages, no matter how many exams they are doing and how important those exams are.

Since I have the Minister's ear, I will also state my deep concerns on the low rate of breastfeeding in this country. We have the lowest rate of breastfeeding in Europe and the highest rates of caesarean sections. A caesarean section is a traumatic major surgery. It is not what one wants to be dealing with having just become a mother, whether for the first time or having had children before. We really need to look at that. It is not a great start to life. Many of my friends and family members have had caesarean sections. Having been forced into major surgery makes it much more difficult to care for a newborn. The Minister should look at those figures and try to determine why this is happening and why the rate of breastfeeding is so low. When we know what is happening, we can look at solutions.

I have a 21 year old myself but I do look at the lack of funding for mental health services for secondary school students. Much of the provision of such services has been left to charities. I have been raising funds for many causes for years but I sometimes feel we are raising funds for services that should be provided by the State. There is a family resource centre in my local area which is seriously struggling to meet the demand for mental health services subsidised by the State because private mental health services can often cost €50, €60 or €70 an hour. That is outrageously exclusive. I ask the Minister to look at the area of mental health very seriously. We should move towards including mental health in the curriculum and the induction process into first year of secondary school so that young people, and old people, will have the tools to manage their mental health in a preventative way rather than only being given help when it is nearly too late or sometimes is. Mental and physical health cannot be separated from one another. I come from a very rural area and we have serious problems in attracting GPs. Dr. Gerald Wheeler was my GP for the past 40 years. He is 71 and wanted to retire but could not. He would not do it because there was no one to take his place. He worked all through the Covid crisis. I have to mention him because he is now finally retiring. GPs should not, however, be forced into those situations. Having given more than 50 years of their lives to medicine, they should not be trapped working forever because we have not solved the GP issue, especially in rural areas. GPs also need supports because more and more people are presenting to them with mental health issues. GPs cannot always refer them on. Mental health problems are an acute issue, like a broken arm or a broken leg; one does not put the patient on a waiting list for a year and a half. He or she needs help urgently. Mental health problems have to be seen as an emergency issue. I wish the Minister the best of luck.