Maternal Mental Health Supports: Motion
Seanad Éireann — 2026-02-11
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Mary Butler (FF), Waterford

I also welcome Cara whom I just met outside the door earlier. I would also like to welcome my colleague Deputy Tony McCormack. He has some students in with him today. They are all very welcome to Seanad Éireann to see democracy in action.
I thank the Senators, especially Senator Cosgrove, for raising this important motion by the Cross-Party Group coming together to promote best practice for maternal mental health and women's health.
I am proud as a woman to be able to stand up here and support this motion. When the motion came in on Friday evening, the Minister, Deputy Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, and I had a look at it and were both happy to support it. Any opportunity to speak on mental health is a good one. I have been speaking about mental health since about 8.10 a.m. It has been one of those days because we had a committee meeting on the Estimates for 2026 for three hours as well this morning. It is great to get such a focus on mental health.
This is an issue of such importance in society. Becoming a parent is a huge change and adjustment. While it is of course a source of great joy, mental health challenges can be a big part of having a baby. We are much better at recognising this now and, in fact, mental health issues during and after pregnancy are common. One in five women will experience a mental health problem either during pregnancy or in the first year after giving birth. This could be a previous problem that has come back or the first time experiencing an issue. It can range from feeling low or anxious through to postnatal depression or post partum psychosis requiring specialist support. For many first-time mothers, it can be just anxiety and nervousness at not knowing what is ahead of them and worry about the whole process.
I acknowledge the work of Aolish Gormley and the Year of Care campaign, which she founded. She has drawn attention to a really important issue. I share her vision for maternal care in Ireland and services and supports for the physical, emotional and mental health needs of new mothers. We must all work to make this a reality.
I want to set out the actions by the Government to invest in and deliver improved maternal mental health supports and services. This is an area of Government policy where significant focus and substantial investment is under way. As Minister of State with responsibility for mental health, I have been working for several years now to expand our maternal mental supports. Government resourcing of mental health and suicide prevention has increased by over 50% in my time in this office. Progressing women's health continues to be a priority for this Government. We have overseen unprecedented levels of investment in women's health. I must give credit to the former Minister, Stephen Donnelly, the former minister of State, Senator Rabbitte, the Minister of State, Deputy Feighan, and myself. We all came into the Department in 2020 and there was a push at that time to improve supports for women's health. We started that off. I always thought they did not stand a chance when Senator Rabbitte and I got together. Thankfully, we now see that being supported by all sides of the Houses, in both the Dáil and the Seanad, but especially by the Minister as well. It has been embedded, which is really important.
The national maternity strategy is now in its final year and we are developing a successor strategy, which will be informed by the extensive review and evaluation of the implementation of the current strategy. The new strategy will be supported by insights from the 2025 national maternity experience survey published in December, in which 3,300 women participated. This is the lived experience about which I spoke every day when debating the Committee Stage of the Bill. Having 3,300 participate with their lived experience is powerful because it will reflect the reality on the ground. Through the national maternity strategy we have delivered significant improvements across our maternity services, including perinatal mental health supports and supports during the postnatal period.
A really important development in maternal mental health support has been the new national network of postnatal hubs. I acknowledge that Senator Cosgrove mentioned these. They provide essential care for women in the community in the weeks after birth. Postnatal hub services include core midwifery care, physiotherapy, lactation and infant feeding support, parent education, bereavement support and birth reflection services. Women can engage with hubs for as long as they need to. The hubs are delivering meaningful improvements in postnatal care. Women using them report much higher satisfaction with the attention paid to their physical and mental health in the postnatal period. The one-to-one midwife support is particularly valued.
Services have now been established in Dublin across the maternity hospitals and at Our Lady of Lourdes, Drogheda, at the start of this year following the successful pilot of the hubs in Cork, Kerry, Kilkenny, Portiuncula and Sligo. Each hub represents an additional six to ten whole-time equivalent staff and four further hubs will commence later this year as part of phase 3 of the postnatal hubs project.
Another priority action of the national maternity strategy is the review of the maternity and infant care scheme, including an examination of the current schedule of visits. The scheme is an essential programme of care to all expectant mothers, provided by their GP and a hospital obstetrician. The GP provides an initial examination, if possible before 12 weeks, and a further five examinations during the pregnancy, which are alternated with visits to the maternity hospital. In the case of a significant illness, such as diabetes or hypertension, women may have up to five additional visits to the GP. After the birth, the GP will examine the baby at two weeks and both mother and baby at six weeks. Checks under the scheme include monitoring of mental health, with GPs well positioned to assess for problems and provide support or onward referral to other services. Last year, the HSE’s national women and infants health programme convened a review group on the maternity and infant care scheme, engaging with key stakeholders and conducting a literature review to progress the review. The report and recommendations are due to be published in early 2026.
Actions on maternal mental health run along a spectrum from mental health promotion to the delivery of specialist perinatal mental health services, in line with the overarching objective of Ireland’s national mental health policy, Sharing the Vision, which views the provision of services and supports across a broad continuum. Actions under Sharing the Vision range from prevention and early intervention, service access, co-ordination and continuity of care, social inclusion and accountability and continuous improvement. A key recommendation under Sharing the Vision was the development of a stand-alone mental health promotion plan for Ireland and this plan, Pathways to Wellbeing, is now a reality. Launched over a year ago, Pathways to Wellbeing aims to strengthen protective factors for mental health at the individual, community and structural levels. It adopts a systems approach, promoting universal supports for all and targeted interventions for those most at risk. Strengthening the foundations for positive mental health in the early years is a key priority area within the plan. However, I must flag that some women do not want to get involved in such supports. That is probably a reflection of what they are going through, but they do not always reach out and attend supports. Maybe the onus is on us all to encourage people to avail of the supports that are available.
My Department will work with lead and supporting partners to increase access to antenatal and postnatal supports that improve maternal and infant mental well-being. This focus reflects the compelling international evidence that early relational support and nurturing environments are among the strongest predictors of lifelong mental health. By embedding mental health promotion supports within a broader whole-of-government approach, Pathways to Wellbeing seeks to create the conditions where positive mental health can flourish from the earliest stages of life and buffer against future inequalities. A phased implementation plan, currently in development, will set out clear actions, timelines and shared responsibilities to drive co-ordinated delivery across sectors and ensure sustained impact over the coming years.
For a small number of women, however, pregnancy and the perinatal period can become a more serious mental health issue or a relapse or recurrence of a pre-existing condition. This is really challenging, with potentially very negative effects on the relationship between mother, baby and the family unit, and specialist support is needed. That is why we have developed and continue to invest in our specialist perinatal mental health services, a HSE mental health service programme now available in all 19 maternity hospitals nationwide. I am particularly proud of this programme and I know it works very well. Services provide support to pregnant women and women with a baby up to one year old, so the mental health supports are there up to age one of the baby with an existing or new mental health problem.
Funding for services is approximately €4 million, recurring each year, with six consultant-led multidisciplinary teams in place across our major maternity hospitals, namely, the Coombe, Holles Street, the Rotunda, Galway, Cork and Limerick. Perinatal mental health midwives deliver the programme in the other 13 maternity sites. The HSE is progressing a review of the model of care for specialist perinatal mental health services, with a refreshed model due to be published later this year. The key objective of this refresh is the provision of equivalent service to the major hospital sites for the other 13 spoke sites and this will be the focus of this second phase of the model of care.
Under budget 2026, I have allocated funding to recruit two additional consultant psychiatrists for the programme’s busiest sites, the Rotunda and Holles Street, to meet growing demand for the service. I visited the Rotunda site a couple of years ago. It was around 10 March, which is International Women's Day. I met people using the service and those delivering it, and I was struck that one in every five women that year had accessed the mental health perinatal supports. In some cases, it was just that women were nervous being pregnant for the first time. They might not have had a lot of support at home, and just knowing the service was there was enough for them. There were other people who had enduring mental health conditions who needed a huge amount of support the whole way through. There were different cases. There were women who had given birth and had a traumatic birth, suffered panic attacks after the birth and needed that support after the baby was born. I was really struck by how important these supports are to women who are pregnant. As I said, I have allocated funding to recruit two additional consultant psychiatrists, such is the demand. I will continue to invest in this vital service to meet our programme for Government commitments to double the number of multidisciplinary perinatal mental health teams and increase the number of perinatal mental health midwife posts to ensure women are getting the support they need at this crucial moment in their lives.
A key priority under the model of care is to develop a perinatal mother and baby unit, PMBU, something I have been trying to push now for quite a few years. This is an inpatient mental health service with relevant maternity support to allow women to stay with their babies during their mental health treatment. My Department and the HSE are working to progress a perinatal mother and baby unit for Ireland, and I have been very clear that this is one of my key priorities for my second term in this office. To meet the needs of new mothers with moderate to severe mental illness, the perinatal mother and baby unit must be sited at a location with access to a maternity hospital as well as an acute mental health unit. This will ensure mental health and maternity expertise are always available. We have made progress. It is envisaged that the perinatal mother and baby unit will be developed on the grounds of St. Vincent’s University Hospital in Dublin. I thank Martina Queally, the regional executive officer of HSE Dublin and South East, which is my own area, and the board of St. Vincent’s University Hospital because we have come to an agreement on this unit. I am delighted about this. We are also going to build a new department of psychiatry on the site.
This morning, I spent three hours in committee with the Minister, Deputy Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, the Minister of State, Deputy Kieran O'Donnell, and the Minister of State, Deputy Jennifer Murnane O'Connor discussing the Estimates and the budget we have in the Department. I am delighted that for the first time ever I have a significant budget for capital for mental health supports. Up to 2030, I have secured €470 million under the national development plan. I have never had capital funding like this before, so I am really pleased. The allocation this year is €41 million, so there is another €429 million there, and watch me spend it, because I will spend it, which is key.
There was no mother and baby unit on the entire island, North or South. We are not going to stand still, though, because I have also had significant engagement with Sandra Broderick, the regional executive officer for HSE Mid West. I know she is keen to progress a perinatal mental health unit in Limerick to serve the west of the country and some CAMHS beds as well. I have seen her plans, and she has submitted them, so we are making progress.
Outside of hospital and clinic-based services which include psychological supports, women can access a range of mental health supports in the community, but we must encourage women to reach out for those supports. General practitioners are trained in the management of most common mental health conditions and also have access to mental health resources at a primary care level, and can refer their patients to counselling services, such as counselling in primary care, SilverCloud and community-based therapy services. HSE mental health services deliver a nationwide network of adult mental health teams as well, as all the Senators know.
To conclude, I once again thank the Senators, led by Senator Cosgrove, for this important debate. I believe there is another event in the audiovisual room next week.

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Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:37+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-11