Kathleen Lynch secured €35m for mental health

The Government was poised not to allocate a single penny to mental health in Budget 2016, but was forced to backtrack at the last minute when junior health minister Kathleen Lynch threatened to resign.

In a revealing interview with the Irish Examiner, Ms Lynch said that, during the budget negotiations, “the €35m was removed from the budget entirely”. This was the figure the Government committed to ringfencing annually for mental health in its Programme for Government 2011-2016.

Ms Lynch also revealed that she will throw her hat in the ring again in the event of a general election being called in the next 12 months, having lost her seat in last month’s poll.

And she said it is “probably” time for Joan Burton to step down as Labour Party leader, with Brendan Howlin her preferred replacement, not Alan Kelly.

She also predicted that Frances Fitzgerald will be the next leader of Fine Gael and that another election will be called shortly.

However, she said she had “no idea” why Máiría Cahill was chosen as Labour’s candidate for the Seanad by-election, which she won last November.

Ms Lynch said the decision to pull the plug on mental health funding was made by Finance Minister Michael Noonan, Minister for Public Expenditure Brendan Howlin, and Health Minister Leo Varadkar.

“There were three involved,” said Ms Lynch. “The minister for health, the minister for public reform, and the the minister for finance. The Budget was Tuesday morning and I refused to go to Dublin. There was a lot of phonecalls, they didn’t believe me until someone said: ‘Where are you exactly?’

“I said: ‘I’m at home, it’s a beautiful day.’ And it was.

“They [department officials] said: ‘Why aren’t you in Dublin?’ I said there’s no need to be in Dublin. What would I be doing in Dublin?

“By 2pm, they capitulated.”

She left Cork for Dublin an hour later and arrived at 5.35pm, with just 25 minutes to go to the Department of Health press conference.

“When I walked in someone said: ‘What were you going to do?’

“And I said: ‘Well it’s very difficult to negotiate with someone who doesn’t want anything for themselves.’ The only thing I wanted was a budget for mental health. It wasn’t as if they could offer me something else that would be beneficial, I wasn’t interested.”

Asked by the Irish Examiner where the Government found the €35m for mental health funding at the last minute, Ms Lynch said: “Sure they find money everywhere. Every government finds money.”

Asked if the figure had been plucked from the air, Ms Lynch said: “No, it all has to add up at the end of the day. The figures have to add up at the end of the day, take my word for it.”

Ms Lynch said it was the closest she came to resigning during her time as minister. She said Taoiseach Enda Kenny was aware of her threat and told her that evening: “You’ll be getting your money,” to which Ms Lynch said she replied: “I never had any doubt.”

Asked how she had breezed her way through the press conference, she said: “That’s what’s called being a politician.”

At the press conference, no details were given in relation to the mental health spend other than Ms Lynch saying that the annual €35m committed to in the Programme for Government would be delivered.

In 2013, amid reports Ms Lynch threatened to resign on foot of cuts to the mental health budget, she said at the time: “I never would, and that’s not what I do.”