In the context of today's discussion, I want to focus on bus services and their discontents, and in some cases their near-total absence, across east Cork. We hear a great deal about BusConnects, strategic corridors and the future of public transport in Cork. It is vital that the ambition extend beyond the city and the immediate suburbs. In east Cork, the current standard of bus service is utterly abysmal. I strongly believe that the Midleton-Youghal rail link is an essential part of the long-term public transport f…

I commend Sinn Féin on this motion. This issue goes to the heart of whether we are serious about disability rights or content to keep repeating the language of disability rights while leaving disabled people to absorb costs that are neither optional, marginal nor of their own making. The cost of disability means higher expenses associated with transport, equipment, therapies, healthcare, communication supports and personal assistance, among other things. It means the cost of navigating a society that is still far t…

One of the most important climate measures that could be taken in my constituency of Cork East is the restoration of the Youghal train link. The Taoiseach is well aware of the rail advances under way in the region. We look forward to new stations between Midleton and the city, and ten-minute frequencies of service. Youghal and its hinterland, though, are being entirely left out of that revolution in public transport. This is about carbon emissions, but also about fairness in regional development and Youghal’s poten…

I commend my party leader, Deputy Cairns, and her colleagues in the party, including Ellen Casey, on taking a lead on this Bill. Eight years ago, people in every part of this country voted to remove the eighth amendment from the Constitution. They did so because they had listened to women. They listened to women who had been sent away from their own country at moments of profound grief, fear and medical crisis. One of the central issues in that campaign was the tragedy of fatal foetal abnormality. Women and couples…

Two weeks ago, I raised with the Taoiseach here a tragedy involving a young man who died in east Cork last year in the context of a prolonged wait for an ambulance to reach him and what the HSE has referred to as "omissions" in the administration of care at the scene. I followed up our exchange by emailing the Taoiseach's office with a clear outline of the efforts made by the family to secure a meeting with the Minister, Deputy Carroll MacNeill, beginning on 29 January, four and half months ago. That first request …

It is becoming almost impossible to find words to describe the dehumanisation of Palestinians by the Israeli State. In recent days, a Palestinian family in the West Bank buried their 80-year-old father. Israeli settlers then arrived and claimed the cemetery land as part of a settlement. The family was forced to exhume his body and rebury him elsewhere under the watch of Israeli soldiers. This is all part of an escalating campaign of terror, displacement and annexation in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Yet, the o…

International Nurses Day should not be treated as an annual exercise in sympathetic, soothing words about how great our nurses are. Nurses do not need another round of empty public praise or applause that carries no willingness to improve their working conditions behind it. Our nurses need a health service that take their safety, their working conditions and their health and well-being seriously. Of course, we should recognise and celebrate the work nurses do. Every day, in hospitals, community services, mental hea…

I commend Deputy Gogarty on his motion and the strong and sustained support that he and his office colleagues have given many families affected by the issues being discussed here today. As a psychologist working in mental health services, I have seen the fallout when family conflict becomes destructive, entrenched and entangled in the labyrinthine and secretive family courts system. I have supported people whose mental health was weaponised against them and whose distress was treated as evidence that they were unsa…

I want to raise the tragic death of a young man in east Cork last year and the serious issues that have emerged from the HSE's review of his care. The young man's family made an emergency call during a prolonged seizure event. The National Ambulance Service was unable to reach him until 47 minutes after that call was made. It is also a matter of public record that the HSE has acknowledged omissions in aspects of the clinical care provided. Behind that careful language is a devastated family, a precious life lost an…

I acknowledge the significant improvements that have been made to the Bill through the Seanad process. That is very much appreciated. Amendment No. 276 relates to a very concerning provision in the Bill. A child in serious mental health distress needs urgent clinical assessment and therapeutic support. They do not need the trauma and stigma of Garda custody. A Garda station is not a therapeutic environment. It is not a child-centred or trauma-informed environment. Gardaí themselves are not clinicians. They are not …

I wish to speak to amendment No. 93 in relation to advocacy. It is obviously positive that information about advocacy is shared with the person who is involuntarily detained, but being told advocacy exists is not remotely the same as having a statutory right to independent advocacy. It is regrettable that despite a very strong focus on this from some of the interest groups such as Mental Health Reform in each stage of the Bill, that has not been provided for. A person who is involuntarily detained may be very fearf…

I commend the Minister of State on the inclusion of this section. I note my concern about the levels of professional defensiveness and detachment from the reality of service user experiences exhibited by the College of Psychiatrists of Ireland in its attempts to remove the term "pharmacological restraint" from the Mental Health Bill. It is highly invalidating of the experiences of people. These people do exist and I have worked in the mental health system myself. They are people who have been over-sedated, who have…

I want to make a more nuanced point on pharmacological restraint. I welcome this, as I said. Mental Health Reform has also welcomed the recognition of pharmacological restraint as a restrictive practice that must be regulated. It has also warned that the definition may be too narrow to capture the full reality of how people can be pharmacologically or chemically restrained. That concern is well founded. As I was alluding to earlier, it is not enough to say, as per the Bill, that medication was given for treatment i…

I want to support the points made by Deputies Sherlock and Clarke and to come back to what I said on independent advocacy and independent complaints. What was the obstacle to enacting independent advocacy and independent complaints? It seems they would be basic parts of human rights-oriented legislation. They seem uncontroversial. I would not imagine there was lobbying against them. It is low-hanging fruit and it is a shame it is not part of it.

I commend the Minister of State on the epic undertaking that has been the very complex journey of this Bill and the vast amount of work she has put into it. It is fair to say that it is not a perfect Bill but it is a substantial improvement on the existing legislation. In the round, the Social Democrats are happy to support it. A number of important improvements were made to the Bill when it was before the Seanad process. Those are very welcome. In particular, I refer to the prohibition on the use of electroconvuls…

The consultation on the next phase of Our Rural Future is welcome but the real test is whether this becomes another high-level document full of warm aspiration or actually improves quality of life, economic development, town and village regeneration, inclusivity and protection of our natural and built heritage in rural communities. Rural Ireland needs services, infrastructure, housing, transport and the renovation and repurposing of long vacant and derelict buildings - in short, serious investment in the everyday f…

The Taoiseach told us this week that the single point of access initiative is being rolled out across child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, children's disability network teams, CDNTs, and primary care so that young people are not languishing on one waiting list after another. There is serious concern, however, within the services that buy-in to the single point of access is not consistent across all parts of the system, including psychiatry, and that there is an absence of a clear adjudication mechani…

The single point of access is a sound concept and I fully support it. Young people are, as the Minister of State said, getting passed from one waiting list to the next and that is happening mainly because services have been understaffed for years and they respond to this by becoming more rigid in their gatekeeping of referrals. There is also an issue of power imbalances that we need to focus on. For instance, it is very difficult for a basic grade speech and language therapist or a basic grade occupational therapis…

The HSE has repeatedly told committees in the Oireachtas that the single point of access will stop children from being moved around the system, between primary care, CDNTs and CAMHS. It is still far from clear how this is meant to work when services fundamentally disagree. That disagreement continues about responsibility for a young person and that is the real test of this reform. Will the Minister of State now set out whether the Department or the HSE has formally engaged with the College of Psychiatrists on the s…

I thank Deputy O'Gorman for proposing this motion today. It is particularly welcome because the protection of our natural world and climate action are foundational to everything else but have dropped off the political agenda to an alarming degree. Last week, near Cobh in my own constituency, constituents reported extensive hedgerow destruction during nesting season. The people who witnessed this activity were very distressed by what was happening. They reported it to the National Parks and Wildlife Service, which t…