I wish to return to the sad and scandalous situation of there being no mental health or long-stay beds in Tipperary. In Crisis House, Clonmel, we cannot progress the tender. Some 724 patients presented at South Tipperary General Hospital last year with mental health issues. That is 14 per week. Only 11 per month, or 140, were transferred to the psychiatric unit in St. Luke's General Hospital in Kilkenny. The other more than 600 were left to their own devices. They had to go home with scarcely any community services. This is a scandal. At the same time, I have received replies to parliamentary questions telling me that almost €2.1 million has been spent on the old St. Michael's unit, which was closed under A Vision for Change. There will be no bed there for mental health. It is all Covid-related. The impact of Covid on the mental health of families today is huge in every county, but I will raise my county of Tipperary every day with the Taoiseach because it is a scandal that it does not have a mental health bed. Some 600 were sent home and, sadly, many of them have taken their own lives. This is being ignored by the Government.

It is not being ignored, and I accept the Deputy's point regarding the impact of Covid-19 on mental health, which is significant and serious. It could continue as long as the pandemic continues. I am concerned about that. We must be conscious of that in the allocation and utilisation of resources. Significant resources have been allocated to mental health over a number of years-----

Nothing in Tipperary.

-----but the capacity to recruit clinicians and personnel has proved difficult. That is a problem. The most important provision in mental health is community mental health. Nobody should leave an emergency department in an acute hospital with no follow-up through either a psychiatric nurse or some community-based psychiatric service that would be of help. That is the ideal model.

It is not there.