Farmer Mental Health and Farm Safety: Statements
Seanad Éireann — 2025-11-12
============================================================

Cathal Byrne (FG), Cultural and Educational Panel

There are a number of points that I want to highlight to the Minister of State. This is a worthwhile and important debate to have in this House.
While mental health is not only an issue that affects rural people and farmers, owing to the nature of their work they spend more time on their own than most other people would. It is important that point is recognised. In my home county of Wexford, there is a fantastic green ribbon committee, which was set up and is organised every year by a man by the name of Patrick Hipwell. I recognise the important work he has done with Wexford IFA, ICMSA and Macra na Feirme.
Every year, in my hometown of Enniscorthy, County Wexford, Enniscorthy Castle is lit up in green to mark the green ribbon event. It is a very important symbol in the town because it gets people talking about why the castle is lit up in green and what that is all about. It is simply spreading awareness of people's mental health and the fact it is okay not to feel okay. Councillor Frank Staples in Wexford set up the very successful ASK campaign, which is based around the idea that it is important to ask people how they are doing. I encourage the Minister of State's Department to come down to Wexford to meet with those two groups. I am sure they would be absolutely delighted to engage with him on it. Perhaps it is something that could be rolled out right across the country. I would very much welcome engagement with the Minister of State on that.
I will highlight a second issue I have spoken about in the Chamber previously. County Wexford has approximately 175,000 people, yet it has no inpatient mental health facility and no mental health beds. If people are experiencing a mental health crisis in Wexford, they have to travel out of the county to Waterford, which is their first point of contact. It is so important, over the next number of years, that there is an undertaking and programme of work by the HSE to get us our own 24-7 mental health facility, perhaps located on the grounds of Wexford General Hospital, where there is space. That is a campaign that has been ongoing for many years now. It is something I feel very strongly about. It is important that issue is highlighted yet again.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2025-11-12/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:18+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-11-12