Let’s stop pretending we’re making progress on mental health services

WHY don’t we admit it? Instead of talking all sorts of gobbledegook about mental health and how much we care, why don’t we admit it is so low down on the list of national priorities it would take some sort of disastrous epidemic for us to begin to take it seriously. We will publish reports, evaluations, strategies, policy documents and manifestos until everyone is fed up talking about it.

But for some reason I don’t understand we’re never going to make the mental health of our people a public policy priority. Instead we get, every year, a statement from the Government that celebrates the progress we’ve made. It’s as if someone has decided that pretending to address the problem will fool us all.

I’ll come back to the celebratory statement in a minute. The latest report is a document called Slán. In fact, it’s the latest in a series. Slán was a nationwide survey of lifestyle, attitudes and nutrition in Ireland, conducted a couple of years ago among more than 10,000 Irish adults.