Richard Hogan: Election looms but is it fair that bills are kicked down the line — again?

Richard Hogan: When the Dáil is dissolved, bills waiting to get passed will have to wait a considerable amount longer. Picture: Moya Nolan

We are in election season. You can feel the frenzy in the air.

America is in the grip of one of the most significant elections in its short history. On November 5, Donald Trump could be consigned to the annals of history. Like Morgan Freeman on that bus out of Shawshank, I hope!

But on our shores, we still don’t have a date for the election we all know will feature polling stations at a school near you. While Leinster House is buzzing with the wink and elbow language of election date, there are important aspects of this election to consider...

When the Dáil is dissolved, bills waiting to get passed will have to wait a considerable amount longer. Some of those bills are directly impacting on families, and the delay to their passing means families are further delayed in receiving the vital treatment they so desperately need.

So, while there is election excitement in the air, we must also remember what this election means for families who have been promised so much by the proposed Mental Health Bill, that, as yet, remains to be passed.

We all know that Camhs needs restructuring at the most fundamental level. We all know families have waited for years to receive the care they need.
Childhoods have passed and families have been ignored.

One of the most devastating impacts of the Camhs scandal is that currently families don’t know where to turn. If you can’t afford private care, where do you go? You have to wait while your sick child gets worse. In some cases, when families did get into Camhs, children were placed on heavy psychotropic drugs, without adequate care or supervision. In other cases, the constant shifting of medical teams meant there wasn’t a coherent approach to working with families. All of this has dramatically impacted on the health of our families.

Many children have been lost in our State. The children’s rapporteur and Barnardos have repeatedly raised safeguarding issues which remain unresolved due to the Mental Health Bill not being passed.

Why are we still waiting? It is nearly two years since the Mental Health Commission (MHC) released its interim report outlining 49 recommendations to overhaul Camhs, and still we wait. Someone should have to answer the question, why? Why the wait? Why the lack of urgency? Why has the MHC not been given the powers to fix Camhs?

We all know self-governance is not a good idea. The age of self-governance has to come to an end. It hasn’t worked. In fact, it has failed us over and over again.

Compare this to the massive strides we have made in women’s health. Put simply, it has finally been prioritised. Ministers O’Gorman and Donnelly should be lauded for the incredible work they have done to better ensure that women receive the care they deserve. But once again, their success brings into focus the problems of placing a serious bill in the hands of junior ministers. What a pity mental health and the Mental Health Bill was not under the remit of a senior minister — if it was, perhaps we would have seen the bill enacted.

I flagged this 18 months ago when I wrote about it. I said how important it was for the Mental Health Bill to be given to a senior Minister because the stakes were so high for families. It wasn’t. And, we wait. Surely someone has to answer to this. Why wasn’t it given to a senior Minister? We say we take mental health very seriously in this country. All the talk would suggest we do. All the inaction would suggest we don’t.

The Mental Health Act was approved by the Cabinet back in July 2024. It contains provisions to allow the MHC to regulate all mental health services. Who better to fix Camhs than the commission that outlined what was wrong with it in the first place?

I’d love, just for once, a politician to explain to their electorate why they have had to wait for so long for the Mental Health Bill to be enacted. Families are waiting and struggling. Why? Now we have another election looming, which means the bill has to wait for the new cabinet to be formed. Will this bill finally be passed, once that has happened? Just who will be given the task of enacting this bill remains to be seen.

I fundamentally believe our politicians are good people. I have met many of them in my work. I hear how they talk about mental health and the services they want to provide for the people of Ireland.

It is time we started to act on our words. We have never had more mental health talk, but we have to get the structures right if we want any meaningful, positive outcome for families.

Currently, it’s just talk.