Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate the Minister of State on the significant amount of work that she and her predecessor and my party colleague, former Deputy Jim Daly, have done. The concept of brain health is important. During Covid in particular, we have had many conversations about mental health. If I sprain my leg, it will swell, I will not be able to walk on it and I will be in pain. How do we know when we are affecting our brain health and mental health and what the differences and correlations between the two are? Work needs to be done through an information campaign and by resourcing people to look after themselves. We know about eating better, getting more exercise, not over-drinking - or not drinking at all - and not smoking. These are things that we know to do but we do not know, and are not resourced or equipped, when it comes to mental health and brain health.

Turning to dementia, I thank Senator Mullen. Apart from the sharing of the experience, his sense of self-reflection and reflective practice within the care of his father is a good model and template for others. I am sure it reflects the experience of other families as they second-guess themselves in their love, compassion and service of the people whom they love.

The prospect of dementia is a frightening one. While accepting all that has already been done, I urge us to consider from a policy perspective whether we are co-producing mental health and research programmes, capturing in our research the lived experience of those who have dementia and their families and carers, and using it to inform our policy. How are we gathering data? Are we gathering data? We must look through the correct lens when considering our policy and practices. Organisations like the Alzheimer Society of Ireland are at the table, but we must ensure the idea of nothing about us without us is practised and that our policies are based on their perspectives. I hear that in the programmes that the Government is rolling out.

Are there social care programmes that we could be running in other areas, for example, youth work and community groups, that would give information, talk about the experience, take away the fear and point to how we have significant interventions and how there have been considerable developments in medical treatments? In this way, we could ensure that we were equipping all actors dealing with dementia with information on all of these experiences and that our policy on resourcing those actors reflected what they needed.