Mental Health

Mental healthcare in Ireland is a piecemeal system that allows many to fall through the cracks. Primary, secondary and specialised care varies greatly across the country, and emergency supports for people in crisis are not fit for purpose.

Mental health services in Ireland have long suffered from chronic underinvestment, and people with a high level of vulnerability often do not receive the specialised treatment that would allow them to integrate back into their community. The Social Democrats aim to create a mental healthcare system that is proactive, interconnected and community-based, while also overhauling acute and in-patient care to ensure those who do reach a crisis point receive the best standard of care possible.

The biggest challenge facing our health and social care services in recent years is the recruitment and retention of staff, across all disciplines. This has been as true in mental healthcare as in the rest of the public healthcare system. These problems have been aggravated by prolonged recruitment embargoes in different guises. There are no current projections of training places needed, and there has been little coordination with the Department of Further and Higher Education around this issue. Workforce planning must form a key part of any approach.

We will also prioritise prevention measures, early intervention, community-based care, and ensure adequate resource allocation, including increasing the annual budget allocated to mental health services to 10 per cent of the overall health budget (currently just under 6 per cent).

Our Mental Health Priorities

• Allocate 10 per cent of the total health budget to mental health services by the end of 2030
• Reinstate the Mental Health Bill 2024 to Dáil Committee Stage and progress the Bill to completion
• Establish a National Workforce Task Force to address both the short term and medium-term needs of our mental health services
• Lift HSE recruitment embargoes and address the critical staffing needs in Primary Care Psychology and Child and Adolescent Mental Health Teams (CAMHs), and significantly reduce waiting times
• Ensure that mental health practitioners in the Community & Voluntary sector, including Section 39 workers, are paid fairly
• Ensure that specialist, community-integrated services for people with complex and enduring mental health difficulties and for people with co-existing Intellectual Disability and mental health difficulties are fully funded
• Recognise the foundational importance of the first three years of life to mental health and development and support the development of Perinatal and Infant Mental Health services

Find Out More

You can read more about our policies and plans in our Mental Health policy document, linked below.