As well as being budget day, last Tuesday was World Mental Health Day. It is a day of increasing importance, given the explosion of reported mental health problems in Ireland and right around the world. The World Health Organization estimates that by 2030, depression will be the largest contributor to disease burden. In Ireland, at least one in four people will have a mental health problem in the course of their lives, and for young people the figures are even more striking. By the age of 13, one in three young people will have experienced a mental health problem. By the age of 24, that will have increased to more than one in two. Tragically, Ireland now has the highest rate of child suicide of girls in Europe, and ten people die by suicide every week in Ireland. Why is this massive rise taking place? It partly relates to a reduction in stigma surrounding mental health and, therefore, a rise in reporting. However, it is also hard to avoid the conclusion that we face an epidemic of mental health problems or, as Mark Fisher put it, a mental health plague. There are multiple contributing factors but there is increasing recognition of the role of social and environmental factors. To be blunt, neoliberal capitalism has created a society with deepened, dramatic inequality. It has driven the atomisation of people and the breakdown of communities. These are the conditions in which, unfortunately, mental health problems thrive. The Royal College of Psychiatrists in the UK reported that inequality is a major determinant of mental illness. The greater the level of inequality, the worse the health outcomes. Children from the poorest households have a threefold greater risk of mental ill health than children from the richest households. This risk is particularly strong for those facing homelessness. A new study reveals the results for both parents and children are devastating and lifelong. The risk is strong for those facing oppression such as young LGBTQ people, who are four times more likely to have mental health problems, and Traveller communities, which face suicide rates six times those of settled communities.

What needs to be done about this? The stigma needs to be taken out of mental ill health. We need to fight fundamentally for a society without alienation and in which people do meaningful work, have control over their lives and are connected to others in their communities. We need proper funding and staffing of mental health services right now. We need universal access to counsellors in primary care and 24-7 direct-access mental health clinics supported by round-the-clock telephone support, but we do not have this. We had A Vision for Change in 2006, which still has not been implemented. The Government's announcement in the budget of €35 million extra was not honest because €20 million of that was announced last year. It is an additional €15 million. I know the Government sent a letter this morning to Mental Health Reform stating that the money will be given and that A Vision for Change will be implemented, but I do not see the figures adding up. It is stated in the confidence and supply arrangement that A Vision for Change will be implemented.

Deputy Murphy will have another minute.

The Government has only one more budget in which to do this. Will the Government take the crisis of mental health seriously?

Mental health and dealing with mental health issues must be priorities for any society. I absolutely accept the point Deputy Murphy makes in this regard because of the personal cost and the societal cost of mental health issues and the personal suffering. As a Government, we want to support in whatever way we can the development of proper mental health services throughout the country. A Vision for Change is the blueprint on which the Government is working. The funding has been increased substantially over the years, with more than €900 million in 2018 going on mental health services. The issue to which the Deputy refers is new funding for mental health services, and budget 2018 allocates an additional €35 million to develop mental health services in 2018. The figures published are accurate. The Minister for Health and the Minister of State with responsibility for mental health have also committed an additional €55 million in funding for 2019. This means a total of €105 million in additional funding for the implementation of A Vision for Change, which is due for review.

A review is ongoing because the policy is many years old. That total of €105 million in additional funding for the implementation of A Vision for Change over the three-year period 2017 to 2019 and that extra €35 million will help build on the work that was commenced in 2017 on the enhancement of what we need, namely, community care teams for children and adults, later life and mental health care, and intellectual disability services. It will also help to continue our move towards a full 24-7 service, with an initial focus on increasing the provision of services on a seven-day-week basis. The HSE has been asked to prioritise this in 2018. The mental health budget will rise from €711 million in 2012 to over €912 million in 2018. This is an increase of 28% in six years.

If the budget shows our values in terms of putting more money into mental health care, it is very clear that we absolutely recognise the need to increase the budget to have a proper mental health service for all our population throughout the country. The overall increase in 2018 in mental health spending will be just under €60 million when the €35 million for service development is combined with the €24 million in additional funding for pay increases. In finalising the HSE national service plan, there may be some adjustments to these figures to take account of procurement savings or other HSE-wide efficiency initiatives.

The budget will increase and fund more staffing in CAMHS, adult psychiatry and later life psychiatry. In addition, further resources will be provided to programmes for eating disorders, dual diagnosis, mental health of homeless people, perinatal mental health, prison inreach services, mental health and intellectual disabilities services and service users' participation. We can see there are significant increases this year, next year and the following year which meet fully the commitment for that €35 million per year. The total that has been decided will ensure the implementation of A Vision for Change is allowed for in those years. As the Deputy said, that has been given in writing to the HSE by the Minister, who has asked it to make sure it starts the staff recruitment that is necessary to have that development of the services.

Some 20% to 25% of overall ill health is caused by mental health problems but less than 7% of the health budget is going on mental health. The Government has played with figures. It played with figures last year in terms of mental health and has done the same in this budget, as opposed to properly allocating the funding to bring us up to the percentage levels that apply in other European countries. The latest figures this morning still do not make sense. There is an answer in the Dáil record in July from the Minister of State, Deputy Jim Daly, stating that just to meet the staffing gap in order to meet A Vision for Change requirements would cost an extra €128 million in a year. If we accept the €35 million figure, that would still require an increase for the next budget of €90 million, and that applies without dealing with any of the capital costs. To actually implement A Vision for Change, if the Government is not going to do it next year and will instead do it in 2019, it would need to allocate an additional €150 million next year. I do not see the Government doing that, although it should. The Government should spell out how the figures match up. If it is going to meet the staffing gap that has been outlined and identified by the Government, and allocate the capital necessary, how is it going to happen?

What is very clear in the budgetary figures is that the total figure for implementing those developments we have been speaking about under A Vision for Change has been costed at €105 million, and that is now allocated between the budgets going up to 2019. The Minister has made it absolutely clear to the HSE that this is the funding it will have so it can plan, prepare and recruit staff, and start that recruitment in time to make sure the staff are in place in each of the years. Obviously, that has already started for 2017, 2018 and 2019.

That is what it has been estimated it will cost but the Deputy should bear in mind what I have said, which is that this is just part of the funding for mental health services. There is also, for example, the capital investment that is being made in Portrane and there is the over €900 million overall in the Department of Health budget for mental health. There is a very serious commitment to the development of mental health services, although we also need to review A Vision for Change and that review is under way, as I have said. The Minister, Deputy Harris, and the Minister of State, Deputy Jim Daly, have written to the Mental Health Reform group confirming an increased allocation for mental health over the three-year period, 2017-19, and they will meet that group, which does such excellent work, in the near future to discuss plans for mental health. There is that key commitment for the budgets up to 2019 to ensure A Vision for Change is implemented.