Reinforcing their two-month-long ineptitude, the Irish government has decided that mental health services – struggling and stretched-thin as they are – can do without €12 million of funding that was promised to them in the last budget. As a third of the ring-fenced budget for developments in mental health, this not a small sum: it would go toward hiring more professionals, implementing more and better-quality services, and providing emergency crisis intervention support for desperate individuals who have nowhere to turn. Most starkly, it would go towards alleviating suffering and saving lives.
In the recent election, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil both committed to enacting A Vision for Change, Ireland’s 2006 mental health recommendation report. The discussion about mental health was positive and engaging. It seemed the prospective government was willing to give mental health the priority it deserves. But the recent decision to plunder mental health funds to stopper the HSE’s deficit truly demonstrates how little the Irish government prioritises the health of its people. It will likely be impossible to implement A Vision for Change if funding is cut, and so they are by default reneging on manifesto promises if this goes ahead.
Before a government has even been formed, they’re letting us down.
However, this let-down would be more devastating than any of the many previous reversals. If you’re lucky enough to have never experienced mental ill-health, then it can be hard to imagine what it’s like. The painful crack of a broken bone is visceral – you may never have known it yourself, but you can imagine it wouldn’t be nice. But mental health issues are ineffable, harder to define. They defy comparison if you haven’t experienced them. What does depression feel like? What is an anxiety disorder? If you know these conditions personally, then you know how truly devastating they can be. If you don’t know them, then you may be unlucky enough to someday. Mental disorder does not discriminate. You can only hope it’s not you.
I fail to see how such an expensive endeavour could be provided without this €12 million, when this country doesn’t even have enough staff for the care services already in place.
But what if someday it is you – or your sister, your father, or your best friend? What if it is you looking for support and finding that waiting lists are oversubscribed, that the only option for crisis intervention is an overrun A&E department where sensitive care just isn’t possible, that college mental health services are strained under the weight of the many students looking for help. According to Yvonne Tone, a counsellor with Trinity’s Student Counselling Service, waiting lists in March had approximately 70 people on them. In a heartbreaking account earlier this year, an Irish woman detailed the long and painful struggle her family faced in trying to seek help for her brother, who ultimately died by suicide. Though A Vision for Change committed to the provision of a 24/7 specialist care service for every community, that was ten years ago. I fail to see how such an expensive endeavour could be provided without this €12 million, when this country doesn’t even have enough staff for the care services already in place.
For young people – who see stark statistics about high suicide rates amongst our peers and who hear our own friends’ stories or may even have our own – this should be a particular affront. We’re considered the apathetic generation by those who make decisions in this country. They evidently do not think that we will complain with any force or passion if mental health services are undermined in this way. The track record would suggest they are right: some of us may have protested against hikes to student contribution charges, but many of us likely did not. But while fee raises would affect us, they wouldn’t impact upon us with the same brutality as a loss of vital mental health services. One in five Irish young adults experiences mental health difficulties – this is a youth issue just as much as it is a national issue and a health issue. As young people in Ireland, we can’t let this one slide.
Mental Health Reform and the Union of Students in Ireland have organised a national demonstration for mental health. While many of us have exams next week and important commitments, an hour away from the library to protest against these cuts will make little difference to your ultimate grades – but may drastically improve mental health service provision in this country. Without adequate funding for mental health services and without a government that cares about the mental wellbeing of its own citizens, many more people will be put at risk. If you’ve never attended a funeral for someone who has died by suicide, then you should consider yourself lucky. I promise you that you won’t want to be there.
More information about the demonstration can be found here.
If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article you can contact Trinity Counselling at (01) 8961407 and www.tcd.ie/Student_Counselling, Niteline at 1800 793 793 and niteline.ie, or Samaritans Ireland at 116 123.
