Richard Boyd Barrett: Urgent call for 24-7 mental health emergency care
Richard Boyd Barrett spoke in support of a motion calling for emergency mental health services to operate 24-7, with dedicated mental health emergency rooms in level 3 and 4 hospitals and increased investment in community crisis services. He pressed for guidance for public representatives, proper staffing, psychology departments in every school, and action on social media recommender algorithms that he says worsen youth mental health.
Support for 24-7 emergency mental health services
He commended Sinn Féin for the motion and outlined specific demands - 24-7 emergency mental health coverage, dedicated mental health emergency rooms in level 3 and 4 hospitals, investment in Model 2 hospitals, and proper staffing for mental health services. He highlighted crisis assessment and intervention services, late-night outreach spaces, crisis resolution teams, and community-based assessment, support and treatment teams as central measures.
Frontline experiences and service gaps
He described instances from his clinic where people presented feeling suicidal and staff had "literally no idea what to do," leaving traumatized staff and distressed patients. He said out-of-hours options are limited after emergency departments at St Michael's and St Lachlanstown were reduced to 8-8, leaving overstretched services such as St Vincent's as the only recourse in many cases.
Dual diagnosis and barriers to care
He raised the problem of dual diagnosis - people being turned away from emergency departments because of concurrent drug or alcohol problems - attributing this to a lack of specialised dual diagnosis services and community supports rather than staff reluctance. He argued that community-based alternatives should be available before crises escalate to emergency department presentations.
Guidance for public representatives and resourcing
He urged the minister to produce guidance for public representatives who face suicidal constituents and to ensure resources and staffing are provided to implement the motion. He welcomed that the government is not opposing the motion but insisted the measures require concrete funding and planning to be effective.
Prevention, schools and social media harms
He called for a psychology department in every school so young people have places to go for mental health support, and linked many youth crises to social media recommender algorithms. He criticised those algorithms for promoting harmful content - including material on suicide and body image - and referenced a bill put forward by Deputy Murphy aimed at tackling recommender algorithms that he said profiteer from young people's harm.
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Yeah, can I commend Sinn Féin for putting forward this motion about the need for emergency mental health services and that that should be 24-7, that it should involve dedicated mental health emergency rooms in level 3 and 4 hospitals and also, you know, investment in model 2 hospitals and the proper staffing for mental health services and the second last point I think is particularly important in terms of my own experience about investment in mental health crisis assessment and intervention services and community-based alternatives late-night outreach spaces, crisis resolution teams, community-based assessment, support and treatment teams and the reason I say that is because on a number of occasions in my clinic, either myself or my staff have faced absolutely terrifying situations where people have called us or come in to us and said that they're feeling suicidal and we have no idea what to do. We have literally no idea what to do and in many cases, now if I could ask the Minister one thing it would be to put together, get together some sort of guidance for public representatives who are faced with these situations but in the situations where we have, our staff are traumatised and we're dealing with traumatised people and we literally do not know what advice to give them, where to go but usually where we end up is being told we have to call the police so that's literally all that's available, call the police if somebody is threatening or, you know, if it's out of hours, I mean in our case two of our emergency departments in St Michael's and St Lachlanstown were reduced to 8 to 8 a number of years ago something we campaigned very strongly against so the only thing that's available then would be St Vincent's which of course is overrun, is chaotic and often certainly we have a lot of reports of and I don't know if it's mentioned in the motion but the issue of dual diagnosis where people are actually turned away from emergency departments because they also have problems with abuse of drugs or alcohol and there's unwillingness often to treat people in that situation and I don't blame the staff for that by the way but it's the lack of specialised mental health services, dual diagnosis services but also stuff that's in the community even before you end up in an emergency department with the measures that are being proposed in this motion there should be community-based alternatives as the motion said crisis intervention teams so that there are other supports available for people in these situations so I hope the government, it's good that the government is not opposing this motion but I think we need to see the resources in place and we also need to think beyond this motion I mean one of the things that I think for example an awful lot of the mental health crises that we see in this country at the moment are with our young people and one thing I strongly believe and I've said it a number of times in here is we should have a psychology department in every single school in every single school and this is the case in many other countries in the world that they have psychology departments not just individuals but actual departments and I believe we should have the same so that there are places to go in schools for young people who are facing mental health crises it obviously is also worth saying that the government shouldn't be sort of trying to deal with the consequences of mental health crisis on the one hand but on the other hand failing to act against some of the forces in the world that are actually fermenting the mental health crisis that often leads young people to feel suicidal or to end up in severe mental health crisis and of course I'm referring to some of these social media companies and they're completely reckless, irresponsible behaviour in terms of these recommender algorithms that are pushing stuff at young people that is actually fermenting much of the mental health crises that young people are experiencing suicidal ideation issues to do with you know a body image and so on that can have such a big impact on our young people and can lead them into these mental health crisis situations or even suicide algorithms pushing stuff about suicides suicidal ideation at young people it's absolutely shocking and profiteering out of it as it was highlighted by Deputy Murphy in the bill that we've put forward now about trying to do away with these recommender algorithms that are pushing enough of this dangerous stuff at our young people so there's many many different aspects to the mental health crisis that face many in our society and that will affect many people or certainly an awful lot of people at some point in their life and what's put forward here in this motion I think is a very important part of it and I hope the Government will act on it provide the staffing, the resources to actually make it happen but there are also other things beyond this which I think the Government need to consider thanks to Deputy Blight Barrett we know
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