Group in bid for local election candidates’ support

LOCAL election candidates are being urged to support Ireland’s forgotten constituency — people with a mental illness.

Mental Health Ireland (MHI), which has just launched its pre-election campaign, believes local politicians are ideally placed to demand better mental health services in their community.

The group, the country’s largest voluntary organisation representing the interests of people with disabilities, is now seeking a pre-election commitment from candidates to support stronger measures locally to promote positive mental health services.

MHI and its 100 local mental health associations insist that candidates promise to demand improved mental health services as a priority.

It also wants election candidates to state they will push for a review of the housing needs of people with a mental illness.

MHI pointed out that an inadequate response from local authorities to the housing question has resulted in many people being unnecessarily confined in institutional care or becoming homeless.

In particular, MHI wants candidates to urge local authorities to promote positive mental health in their communities.

In a letter to the leaders of the political parties and directors of elections, MHI chief executive Michael Howard pointed to recent research showing that people with a mental illness have become more positive.

“There is now widespread acceptance of the need for, and overwhelming public support for, greater investment in the whole mental health area,” he said.

Unfortunately, he said, official action has lagged behind these improving public attitudes.

“Despite such positive responses from the public, those affected by mental illness remain a largely forgotten constituency, in a political 'no man's land',” Mr Howard added.