Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I rise to thank the Local Authority Members Association, LAMA, for an excellent initiative it launched during a training seminar which took place on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of last week. The initiative relates to mental health. I commend that association and the Association of Irish Local Government, AILG, which also held a training seminar on Saturday, the emphasis of which was mainly on mental health and included a briefing from the director of the National Office for Suicide Prevention. The focus on mental health for public representatives and the wider community is welcome. I commend the LAMA for its initiative which will involve the funding, from its own resources, of up to six one-hour confidential sessions with a qualified psychotherapist. That individual is the Olympic silver medalist Kenneth Egan. He is a councillor and a qualified psychotherapist. The association is willing to provide that resource. Anyone can email a confidential email address. Only Mr. Egan will know that somebody has contacted him and the LAMA will fund the sessions. It is a welcome initiative. Many people may only require a half-hour session or a single session. Perhaps something is getting to someone who does not know where to go or turn. It is a welcome initiative from the LAMA.

The seminar to which I have referred was the first since the LAMA cancelled a seminar in March 2020. It is almost two years since the organisation had an in-person training seminar. Since the local elections, there has only been one such seminar, which took place in Ennistymon in late 2019. It is welcome that the LAMA has put this emphasis on mental health, not just because of the pandemic, although it has probably accentuated those challenges. It is very welcome.

I also commend the AILG on all it has done on mental health, particularly last weekend. That is welcome and it is important for us to acknowledge that public representatives are also human beings and have the same challenges as everybody else. They are sometimes subject to trauma.

I agree with much of what Senator McDowell has said. I may return to that topic on another day.