Mattie McGrath warns of mental-health crisis, welcomes Jigsaw

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this very important matter here this afternoon. I want to say to acknowledge at the outset the genuine attempts being made and that have been made by Minister of State Deputy Dailie. We now have a newly designated jigsaw service going to be provided in Turlis, which I'm only welcome. I'm worried about the timelines because we need to see it set up and it's five years too late. That being said, I have expressed concerns and the Minister will know that they are shared by Father Michael Toomey and Carmel who he has met and who you Minister have great respect for. He's doing some tremendous work and he was on radio after your visit on Tuesday morning with Joe Leahy and indeed there was a third run and under the treatment and fairness and they're all at a cold face, at a very cold face, you know, while they welcome jigsaw. But they want to see it rolled out in the other towns like Conmel, like Carrick and Shoe, a village like Kilcheelam and indeed out into Balaghoreen, right up into Tipperary Town and West Tip. West Tip is a bad state for mental health services, right up into North Tip. So it's a big, long county, it's a difficult minister, but they need it. And Father Michael Toomey, he officiated at a mass this time last week, actually he was my closest, nearest neighbour who ended his own life, suffered for 40 years, Paul Ryan, with mental health issues. And he was a, he was a tutor in Clown, which is a voluntary organisation for people with certain disabilities and a wonderful, wonderful skilled craftsman, a potter and to see the work that he had done in his last part of the year in the midst of his mental illness and to see the profound sense of shock and sadness in the church in the afternoon with all the service users of Clown, all his colleagues in the AA, men thought he wasn't going to have a few at his funeral. He had a request that he asked a few that would be there back to the pub, but the pub couldn't hold him. The biggest church in Clown couldn't hold the crowds. So it's such an impact, wonderful man, gone too early from his wonderful wife and indeed two daughters, it's so sad, but it's an epidemic. And what he has gone through, when he was close to his neighbours, I said, never got a nicer neighbour in our life and a lovely, wonderful, helpful man. He helped so many people and it came back in Spatefuls, but he thought he was in such a dark place that nobody wanted and had any interest in him, but thousands had, it's so sad. But with interventions and with people like Jigsaw and your Seesaw now as well, Seesaw and Clown Mill, sorry, a wonderful group as well. They were quizzed tonight in the Hillview and Joe Walsh there, or Joe Lachey, former councillor and indeed May Walsh who works in my office and many volunteers. I was fundraising every night to do these services and they have drop-in services and they have confidential lines and help. The people out there want to do it. You heard about a service in Nina, which I'm ashamed to say that I haven't seen yet, but I must visit like yourself. Again volunteers from the bottoms up and as Catherine Connolly, Dr Connolly said, what happened to Vision for Change? We had the vision, we got the change and we closed all our beds, but we got none of the state-of-the-art services were promised. It was, we were, as I said to you at the meeting, we weren't badly burned on Tipperary, we were scalded. We lost St Michael's, you know you've admitted it was wrong to take it away from us. We haven't had one long-stay bed. The crisis houses, you know, are struggling to get two extra beds there and when are we going to see, the HSC have accepted now as well as yourself, there's a deficit of these 20 beds. We need 10 of those in South Tip and 10 in North Tip. North Tip patients have to go to Ines. I won't even go into Kilkenny, what happened there and sit down there that I wanted there. And above all, I can't understand for the life of me, with a new 40-bed modular about to open in Clare-Mail at St. Osses of South Tip and Regeneral, why we can't have a room there that people don't have to sit through the trauma and the disturbance of a mad in the wrong way, but just over-packed, crazy stuff under pressure. And Michael Toomey, Father Michael Toomey, taught us eloquently last week about visiting there and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting with a patient helping and I salute him. And the other clergy people as well, of all denominations, and waiting and in no place, no bed, on a trolley. It's just not acceptable that these people have to be put through that. They're suffering. As I said, Minister, I express their concerns and there are very many people who have worked tirelessly and collaboratively over the last seven years, indeed, to ensure the way of jigsaw. I know you were at pains to find that out. Some politicians couldn't wait, they wanted to get it announced first. But look, it's not about announcements. It's about duty we have of care to our fellow human beings. As I said, that's a positive outcome. I also want to say and I want to acknowledge the concerns that are emerging, however, in terms of accessibility of the service of jigsaw. Because the county is too big, we have very poor access. We have good access from Dublin to Turles, but very little from around the county. So a lot of work has been done there. There's no transport. That is why it is absolutely vital, as I said, that the outreach hubs are developed in parallel, in tandem with the development of the main unit. It has to happen. We know the jigsaw cater specifically for young people between the age of 12 and 25 who are experiencing difficulties with mental health. These are the groups who are being particularly affected by the scourge of the rampant drug use and misuse in our county and it's vital that they have accessible services. And we have to tackle it as well. I know you're agreed, Minister, the social drug taking and the cocaine and people of our own equals. I know you're only about saying people, we wouldn't dissociate with it. And I have this recreation at the weekend. It's hugely common now. Frightening, shocking. And that has to be tackled. Because we know the scourge, we know the violence, we know the abuse that goes on with drug cartels and gangs. So it's not all right to be taking cocaine in whatever way they're taking it and then to be supporting those mobsters and gangsters who should be taken off our streets. The terror that they reign and are reigning in Plannmel as well and in the villages in my own county. This is why I hope that the jigsaw service can be expanded, as I said, throughout all the towns and villages. From north to south, we need them. A mobile service or whatever. I don't know how you would do it, but we just can't have that big distance because people won't travel that distance. They can travel. In February this year, we had the publication of the report on, say, the psychiatric facility in Kikinney, which revealed a litany of appalling hygiene services and provision of facilities. I don't want to even repeat them here. They were fined the HSE and brought to court the admitted liability. But that's like rubbing butter to a fat cow's, you know what. Fine to the HSE. So who's paying it? The taxpayers. I mean, it means nothing. Can anyone be held accountable in the HSE? And I said it to the other day, Minister, in the building that we had a meeting. Oh, the farm was saying it was hospital. My wife was a nurse, sir. I used to be in there visiting. I went in there with a chair of the council, we're in the Christmas parties. It's all closed now. There were a couple of hundred patients there. St. Michael's in over the other side of the main hospital was the short term and kind of long stay, if you like, you know what I mean, the places where people had to go. And people with those issues, sadly, will need places from time to time in their lives and ongoing treatment. And now we have the aisle of St. Louis. Now offices, offices and offices and more offices. We had to run the health services when we didn't have those offices. They were patient. They were the hospital. We go up the road to St. Louis, to our ladies in Cashel. Spend 22 million after closing it down. And what's in it? Not a bed. Oh, not a bed. Not a bed. It's a patient-free zone. Offices, offices, offices, offices. Again, that was a functioning hospital. I had my pennies taken out there. I was in there a few times when I was young. And they took out the lift out of it, even, to make sure that no one had been in the patient to go up to the upstairs part of it. It's desecration. It's vandalism. And it's carried on by the HSE. So we had that big hospital. We had 300 patients in St. Luke's and there's 40 beds or something in St. Michael's. And we had our ladies. That's probably 700 patients. And we didn't have all these offices and management to run those hospitals. But we had the main friends. And my God, should we bring them back and just clean the hospitals? That's one thing. You wouldn't have a report like the mouth of St. Luke's when the mails were in charge. And we can do nothing in here every day. We're going to attack the clergy. And attack the Vatican. And who else can we attack? Day in, day out. And the people that gave us our education. That gave us our health services. That were the visionaries that went all over the world. And looked after people. Set up field hospitals and done wonderful work. And we want every day, in the midst of our housing crisis, in the midst of our mental health epidemic, to attack the people, the institutions that served us all so well. But look, thank God, people might realise, sooner than later, the folly of their ways. But getting back to the services, I'll just make the contrast to you, Minister. And Minister Harris came down and saw that in Cashel. And to see offices, offices, plush offices, am I right? Cora-cora carpet. Finest of paintings on the walls. And we're having a bed for a patient who's suffering a psychotic attack tonight. They must be left sitting on a chair. And you told us that you can't have trolleys and what happened in Waterford recently. But no, Minister. We have all these offices now and all these officials and everything else. And we have no services. That's something rotten in the system. When those were functioning in hospitals, we had nurses and we had doctors and very good people. And we had attendants and we had everybody else. And now we have, what do I call them, legions of staff. I want to call them battalions because they don't go to battle. But legions of them. And what are they doing? Pushing paper to here, to there, to whatever. And push it back again and around again. That's what's wrong, Minister. Nothing else wrong. The money's going into, you've talked about the money going from 700 million to a billion. But it's been gobbled up by administration. And it's sad. And a lot of them have, and a lot of very good people. But a lot of the chiefs are self-serving. And themselves, and they can't see what's going on on the ground. There's nothing so blind as those that want to see it all. It's so sad. And we have the likes of Father Michael Toomey and the other priests. And the CISO and Clonmel and the volunteers. I have Jim Intum there as well. The River Shore Watch. Taxi Watch. I was late in Clonmel last Friday night, 20 past three. Met three women going off, walking the quays, ensuring that people are out of the river. It's so sad. It's so sad. I mean, and they have to do it. And with all this administration, using all this money and no services. Minister. And it's just, I know you've done your best and you're retiring from politics. But the system is badly broken. We've got this vision for change, what's going to be. The Bible, according to John Maloney's time. The two Bibles, according to the Minister of State, Kathleen Lynch. And it all collapsed. Closed the book and left it there. Took away all the services. Took away all the hospitals. Closed them. These, the Kinsey and Pletier told us that they were going to open up the doors. Let them all out to patients. To hell out the connex, really. And then we put in no services. Absolutely zilch in Tipperary. Zilch. I salute the front. I salute the P&A, the nurses and the groups that are there, the community care. But look, something very, very wrong. And someone needs to fix it. Thank you.