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.