Rights-based disability law urgent

THE health services attract such persistent criticism, despite the fact that billions of euro are poured into it, that another critical appraisal of one aspect of it is hardly surprising.

The latest report to take the Government seriously to task comes from Amnesty International and concerns its deplorable record across the entire spectrum of mental health.

It confirms that services are slow, inadequate, inconsistent in their applications throughout the country and severely under-resourced in terms of staff, money and available therapies.

Amnesty supports its own findings with collaborative evidence from such authoritative sources as the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in 2002.

Crucially, there was also a comment from the chairman of the Irish Mental Health Commission, which condemned the service as being out-of-date and requiring radical changes.

What is glaringly obvious is that at the height of the Celtic Tiger economy, when the Exchequer was almost embarrassingly bulging, one of the beneficiaries of the country's wealth was mental health.

That fact was noted by the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which noted the favourable economic conditions prevailing in Ireland and observed that no insurmountable difficulties prevented the Government from effectively delivering on its obligations.

The only possible insurmountable difficulty would be a lack of will on the part of the Government to provide what is expected of a country which is still one of the richest in Europe by way of an adequate mental health service at least.

Whatever protestations it may make to defend the level of resources it supplies currently, they can in no measure be entertained as a justification that they do not meet the current needs of those who must avail of them. And that is the touchstone on which to judge our mental health service.

What there is, instead, is a system which has some buildings dating back to the second last century, facilities which are inadequate, under-resourced staff and an official attitude which appears indifferent to the fact that mental health is cast in the role of the poor relation of the health service.

What is urgently needed is a very fundamental requirement, one that would go to the core of ensuring that financial resources and facilities are provided.

That is something which Amnesty International has called for: a rights-based disability and mental health legislation to give full effect to the Government's international human rights obligations.

It is not the first time that an organisation has called for the provision of facilities for people with disabilities to be removed from the realm of bureaucratic largesse and established on a statutory footing.