Nicole Ryan (Sinn Fein)

I welcome the Minister of State. It is lovely to see her in the Chamber. I am here today to honour the memory of the people we have lost to suicide, and to mention some of them. David and Hazel Byrne, aged 52 and 51, were found in their home in County Kerry. Milly Tuomey was a vibrant 11-year-old whose tragic loss shines a harsh light on the gaps in our child mental health services. Her brave mother set up HUGG, a bereavement support group. Rían de Brún, from Ballineen in west Cork, was described as one of the happiest boys in the world but he took his own life when he was just 15 years old. Adam Loughnane from Galway, aged 34, was a bright young man who sought help at University Hospital Galway but tragically died just hours later.There are many more, some known and some unknown, who felt they had no way out, no path of hope. Each of these names is a life lost - a life that should have been saved - and the systems we are supposed to trust to care for them and for all of us are falling short.

I echo the sentiments of Senators McCarthy and Maria Byrne about the lack of cohesion in dual diagnosis services. I am an addiction counsellor. I have worked in addiction centres and homeless centres. In the homeless sector, addiction and mental ill-health thrive. I see it all the time. People are going around and around until – very few get lucky – they inevitably die. They fall through the cracks in society constantly. There has to be joined-up thinking between mental health and addiction services, as others have said.

When people are in crisis they should not be forced to attend an overcrowded accident and emergency department. There should be a rapid response, community-based support, crisis de-escalation teams, and accessible counselling, but these services are simply not there in every area. Instead, we see a postcode lottery of care and broken promises and that is particularly true for our most vulnerable. The postcode lottery is even more pronounced in rural Ireland. The disparity between urban and rural mental health services is stark. Everything is condensed in urban areas and there is very little in rural areas. People in rural communities face longer wait times and have access to fewer mental health professionals and limited access to specialised care. A young person in Ballineen or Belmullet should have the same access to care and crisis support as someone in Dublin 4, but that is not the reality. In too many rural towns and villages families are left to cope alone with services scattered, underfunded and simply absent. This imbalance is not only unjust, it is dangerous. The truth is that young people are dying while waiting for help and families have been left to navigate complex and underresourced systems alone.

Community services such as SOSAD and, in my constituency, the Charleville Suicide Awareness Project, are vital lifelines in towns across Ireland. They are on the brink of closure due to funding uncertainty, even after pre-election commitments were made. This is not just a matter of policy. It is about values. What does it say about us as legislators that we can just accept it? There has to be increased funding for mental health support. As was mentioned, funding is due but it needs to be timely and accessible to all. We need to implement a cohesive early intervention programme around schools and communities alike. Supports are needed to expand crisis intervention centres and services and provide meaningful multi-annual funding for such grassroots services as SOSAD and the Charleville Suicide Awareness Project. We must commit to building a mental health system that is accessible, compassionate and effective. We have to honour those we have lost, including Adam, Milly, Rían, David and Hazel, by ensuring others are not lost in the future.