Mental Health Ireland is seeking a strong signal in the upcoming Budget that the Government is fully committed to the national mental health policy Sharing the Vison.
As one of 77 member organisations of Mental Health Reform, the charity supports the call for an additional allocation of €85m to mental health services in the Budget announcement this Tuesday, October 12th, of which €20m will be required to protect the existing level of service, with €65m designated for new initiatives.
Mental Health Ireland CEO Martin Rogan said, “It is recognised that it will take a number of years to fully achieve the 10% of public health spending promised, but we need to see some front loading of this in the funding for mental health services in 2022.
“We need to see the momentum for change shown in recent years accelerated, so that individuals and families who use mental health services can have confidence in the quality of services, credible service options and choices, timely access and positive recovery informed outcomes.
“A strong funding base for evidence based, co-produced mental health promotion programmes within communities is needed which can be shown to be effective and sustainable. Additional funding would allow for the completion of community based Multi Disciplinary Teams working with Children, Adults and Older persons.
Mr Rogan recognised the need of a doubling of the CIPC (Counselling in Primary Care) programme funding beyond the original allocation of €7m in 2013 which would give a further 10,000 people access to this programme.
The charity is also calling for an investment in the mental health workforce to replace lost capacity, refresh the skills of existing professionals and to broaden the workforce base to include Peers and People with Lived Experience within services.
“Mental Health Ireland has seen the real difference investment in Recovery Colleges can make and there is now an urgent need to provide these Peer-led programmes to every county in Ireland,” said Mr Rogan.
