The Uneducated PT Podcast - Ep:139 Panel Talk: Government Spending.

Episode Date: February 23, 2026

In this first panel of the Higher Conversations Ireland series, we examine one of the most urgent questions facing the country: If mental health funding is at an all-time high, why are outcomes not improving? In 2024, Ireland allocated €1.3 billion to mental health services — the highest figure ever at the time. That has now risen to €1.6 billion for 2026. Yet an internal HSE report suggests the country may be short up to 1,800 psychiatric beds nationwide. Waiting lists remain long, especially for young people. So where is the money going? Is this a structural failure? Or has Ireland built a system that sustains crisis rather than resolves it? Panel Guests: Rob Carry Elaine Mullally Ian Neary Key Questions Discussed: 🔹 Has Ireland developed a “mental health complex” — where institutions benefit from crisis rather than improved outcomes? 🔹 If spending continues to rise but results don’t improve, where is accountability breaking down? 🔹 Are young people suffering from a loss of agency and belief in their future in Ireland? 🔹 Is Ireland’s low investment in community sport and youth activity contributing to declining mental health? 🔹 Why does Ireland rank among the loneliest countries in Europe for young people — and how do we reverse it? 🔹 What single change could make the biggest difference to mental health outcomes in this country?

Right, okay, we're ready to go. Apologies for the delay. What we're going to do basically is obviously it's going to be four different panel talks. The first one is going to be on government spending. I'm going to get them to do a five-minute introduction into who they are and why this represents them either personally or professionally. Then I'll go into my first statement and then we'll have a conversation about some certain topics. So I'll let Rob start.

Okay, so just before we get started, I just want to give a shout out the car for organising this amazing event and for everybody coming along. We could all give a big round of applause. Don't mind. And obviously you guys are coming along. So now out of one year's all over. My name's Rob Carrey. I'm a community activist and I'm a small business owner. I run a gym, I run a martial arts club.

But I guess the reason why I'm sitting here dressed like somebody's landlord is because I was involved setting up a youth mental health charity called Cowher. And we've been based here in Bray. And what we do is we fundraise and we pay for young people to access therapy services through the private sector that otherwise they'd be kind of languishing on a on a waiting list for four weeks if not months you know so that's it the kind of i'm sure we'll get into the details of of care that's the main benefit well the only beneficiary of tonight that's

where all your money's going to go um but i guess to give a little bit more background about care through the martial arts club that i set up um you know we lost somebody in in the club who was you know a very long-standing member who was very special to us the suicide And in the wake of that we are looking around to try and see what sort of services were available for young people who, you know, might need to speak to somebody, you know, urgently. And I discussed this in the promo video, but yet what we found was that typically people were going to have to wait. You couldn't see somebody, you know, for typical talk therapy style of services in a timely manner, let's say. Like I said, it'll be weeks or more likely months that you'd be looking at. But on the flip side of that, in the private sector, there's people, you know, who are qualified.

therapists who are sitting on our hands with a half-filled appointment book. And we were thinking, right, well, what's the problem here? Why can't we just try and put these two groups together? So we fundraised, made some calls, going to touch with a really amazing private therapy service provider called Mion on the Albert Walk there. And basically, we start fundraising, got the money together to cover everybody, therapy service for anybody in the martial arts club that needed it. And from there, we found that we were raising more money than we needed for the

for the people who are accessing the services. So we got in touch with the local community centres and said, hey, look, we have this fund here and if you want, we can extend the services to the young people in your community centre. And then we were in touch of the community guards, and then we were in touch with B-Cat, which is an addiction services centre,

and it just grew and grew and it really was driven by our committee on the Carroll Committee, but it was kind of, the engine was really the public in Bray. You know, there's so many families and sports clubs, and little communities here and there that were so affected by civilized that it was something

that seemed to really catch people's imagination and the whole community just seems to trouts white behind every single fund driver that we tried to do, you know? So yeah, we're now fully registered charity where we're providing services to literally hundreds of young people

but we have provided services literally hundreds of young people immediate, you know, absolute no cost, the bill comes to us. So that's the kind of the background about about Carol and I guess why I'm here. That's about five minutes.

That's about five minutes, yeah. Just about right, just about. Right, so give it the line there. No problem. I don't know how to follow that one, but I'll give it a go. Again, thanks to Carol and Catalyst Cafe for hosting this event this evening. And I'm delighted to have been asked up here to speak. I'm from Port Arlington, County Leach.

I'm married over 30 years and I have two daughters. They're 21 and 22. The reason why I'm here is because the proceeds this evening are going to a very good charity. And anything I can do to help the younger, the next generation, I'm more than willing to do that. So it's no problem for me to be here. I'm delighted. My background is, I have a business for the last 18 years in Port Arlington. It's a children's indoor soft play centre. And over that period of time, obviously there's thousands of children have to go through our doors.

But aside from that, I'm a children's yoga teacher and a teenage yoga teacher. I've also studied mindfulness and meditation for secondary school children, which I've taught across schools, as I have taught yoga across schools. So I've a major interest in mental health, particularly with younger people, because that's where show me the child of naught to seven, and I'll show you the man of seven to 70. That's where the foundation work goes in. That's where the groundwork goes in. And that's where if we can get that part of their upbringing correct, and if we can teach them how to, you know, to touch base with their feelings, etc., then as adults, to learn how to cope better. So I have a big interest in this area and I'm very, very keen to hear what everybody else has to say here this evening. Also another background, part of my background is my frustration around the government and the way they handle the future for our children,

our future generations or my grandchildren, etc. That there's very, very little, you know, put in place either in relation to housing, in relation to services for them. I feel that they're been neglected and I think that if we don't stand up and speak out then nothing will change. Part of our frustration led me to found a co-founder of Independent Ireland, which is a political party. And Ian, I believe you're still with them. So Ian was one of my recruits here beside me. So I founded that over two years ago. I was a chairperson for a couple of years and I left because I just felt the party was going in a different direction than the party I'd set up. So there's no major fall out there. I ran into general election in 2024 as an independent and I just really haven't

stopped canvison and campaigning since for the future of Ireland and for the next generations who I hope that we can make some kind of difference to if we keep doing what we're doing. So thanks everybody for coming tonight and have I done my five minutes. Nailed it. Nailed it. I'll drag this out here. It's all just started the time already. I just want to say thanks. Thank you very much everyone for coming down. Honour to be here. Thanks very much, Carl.

But it's a great panel, great line-up. And I think we're all in the same boat that it's a biggest fear for us generation, the older generation and the younger generation with mental health. It's a danger for everybody. It's literally taking lives off the streets that deserve to be here alongside us. My background is a good friend of mine, Davy Fahy. He took his own life about four years ago coming up to Christmas, and he's been a big loss.

But Rob set up the charity, and he asked me, and I jumped straight on board, because mental health is a big huge thing for all of us. And I always say, like, your best friend and your worst enemy is your own mind. It can make you a millionaire or can make you take your own life. That's how serious it is and how good it is. But I think with people coming together, bringing down the stigma of actually talking about it, we can actually just raise awareness is a big thing, especially for the younger generation, that they can have issues that adults have and speak to people and get it off their chest.

And actually, you can come, like, because there's so many young and all people that are actually taking their lives, which is dangerous and scared. And even small things can lead the suicide that aren't originally suicide. So that's a big thing for all of us. About me, I'm at the rambling on there. Sorry, Carl. So I'm at County Council in Bray. I got in, Iran.

I just wasn't happy to way things are gone. I'm a little course on my, Carl. Yeah, yeah. But like, the country's become a shit show, to be honest. And I look at Bray, and it's like so much potential. I'm very born and bred, my father of Bray, grandfather, my kids, everything, I work in Bray 20 years. And I want to see Bray's striving.

But it's unfortunately gone backwards, whether it be the cliff walk or resources or kids, communities. I just don't feel like we're getting a leg up in things. And it's scary the way the money's just being spent and just gone to the dogs. Unfortunately, but the amount of good people in, but it's phenomenal everywhere you go. But we need people coming together, which I think this charity is doing. And as I said, the stigma is coming down on the thoughts of suicide and people being, actually awareness being lifted, which is probably great. Have you had five minutes? That's five minutes.

That's great. All done. But yeah, thanks very much everything and honest for coming. Much appreciated. Thank you.

Opening statement. So this panel is focused on government spending and structural issues in mental health. In 2024, Ireland allocated 1.3 billion

to mental health services. The figure it was an all-time high but now it's risen to 1.6 billion for 20206. But despite this an internal HSE report

suggests we may be up to 1,800 psychiatric beds nationwide short. So meanwhile, waiting lists are continuing to be high, young people are struggling, and yet we're spending more and more on the problem. So is there questions to be asked in regards to outcomes to the amount that we're spending? I'm going to touch on you first, Rob. Do you believe Ireland has developed a sort of mental health complex where individuals and institutions benefit from mental health remaining a crisis rather than improving outcomes?

I don't know if I'd stretch the point that far I mean I don't believe that you know there's people who are involved in providing mental health services that don't want the best outcome for the person for their client who's coming into seed them I don't think there's people who are thinking like okay by prolonging this person's misery I get more therapy sessions but do you not think with incentives people

subconsciously end up deciding that well you know I need to continue to have a job and therefore I mean I don't solving the problem therefore keeps being a job. I know where I come up from, but I think if you look maybe in the charity sector, I think a lot of people have kind of developed concerns about the charity sector over

recent years. I mean, as I said, like, typically the type of person who decides to make a career out of therapy is going to be a good person who's going to have the best interest of their clients at heart. But I do think when you see figures relating to

the percentage of donations that actually makes it to final NGOs in a lot of charities, not just in the mental health sector, but beyond. That's an alarm bell for a lot of people, especially when you see, you hear about charities that have, you know, they've got waiting lists for people to come in, but at the same time, you know, that would suggest that they're lacking resources, but then you hear that their, you know, their chairperson is taking down $130,000, $140,000 a year plus bonuses or whatever.

That's a bit of an alarm bell, and I think it's kind of, you know, that's the type of structural issue that we see in that I think needs to be addressed. But more broadly speaking, I think this government has been almost defined by its capacity to waste money. They have a phenomenal talent for it. Like, it's in every department, it's in every sector, it's everything from the Children's Hospital. It's, you know, it's the bike shed. It's the waste and money on IPA centers that end up not being used. It's top to bottom.

And I think there is, air charity is quite a bit different because, we're all volunteers and you know so nobody gets paid a penny and I mean I'm from a business background and so my approach to it was like right we are not spending a penny on anything except for our end user yeah so when we needed a website like I just did it myself you know and it's a pretty shitty website but it meant that we had more money to spend on the end user there's no glossy brochures there's no premises there's no insurance there's no overheads and you know we have these committee meetings and it's it's a straight now if anybody wants anything spent on anything other than NGOs.

And it's a very different kind of approach and a different mentality that you find. Maybe it's a government thing, but even on a departmental level, you know, you see, you know, it fosters this idea whereby, you know, if you're the head of a department, you know, you want to try and get as much funding as you possibly can. So you're looking for a big figure on what you spend. And that can be, it could be a county council.

It could be, as I said, a government department. It could be a charity and NGO. They're all incentivized to have a big figure on what they spend because that's going to take over to what they get given the following year. Whereas if you're in business, you're the only absolute opposite. You want your outlay to be tiny. And I think there's something there that is prompting all this waste, not just in the likes of children's hospital, but it boils all the way down to charities NGOs that are receiving our funding from the government. And I think that's where I think most criticism should be led. it's the lack of value for money, the lack of, you know, any sort of accountability when it comes to how money is spent.

Like if somebody's blown money and not getting a decent outcome, like you said, funding's through the roof, like the government's at their doubling spending the mental health services since 2020. In four years, they've doubled it. So why have they not have, you know what I mean, the mental health problems that were having in the country? Like the money is just being pissed away, basically, from what I can say, you know? Yeah, 1,800 psychiatric beds. it. So, is there a lack of accountability there then? Because like you said, the spending's gone up, but there isn't, there doesn't seem to be outcomes. Well, yeah, I mean, I haven't heard

of anybody being held accountable for something like that. I mean, like, government spending overall is, is true the roof over. I think they've doubled out. They're off the country's budget in the last 10 years. And, I mean, nobody seems to, you know, say, okay, well, I'm I, you know, 100% better off, given that they've doubled spending. Yeah. know, I think most people would agree, no or not. Housing isn't where it should be. Healthcare isn't where it should be, mental health, like the infrastructure the country is creaking.

And I think there's never seems to be any accountability, unfortunately. Yeah. Alain, I'll go to you. You've said you entered politics because you didn't see a future for your daughters. A 2021 study found young people in Ireland report lower life satisfaction than most EU peers. Ireland also ranks highest in Europe for youth loneliness and low in perceived control over their future.

Do you think a lot of what young people are actually struggling with when we talk about mental health is a lack of agency and you know hope that they can have a future in this country? Well, yeah, it's that together with the fact that you know, we have we've no housing the job situation is not fantastic There's so many 750,000 adults still living at home with their parents who wouldn't who should be out independently living thing. There's also we're left with the aftermath of the social isolation that a lot of children and young adults experienced during COVID. The lockdowns did end us harm. We don't know the outcome of that yet because there's never, and probably never will be an independent COVID inquiry

into how the treatment, how all those rules mandates are after affecting our younger generation in particular. So there was the lockdowns which caused this social isolation. The education system completely transformed, pushed children back into their schools to study and do their homework and physically

they were not active because they were again in a room studying. There was no physical activity during that period. So there was a whole lot of things missing and then for the much younger generation they missed out on emotional interaction, which we won't see for another couple of years because we're six years on from COVID. So I think there's a huge gap there between social, emotional and mental interaction that we all

experienced as our generation. We grew up outside on, I grew up in a housing estate in Port Arlington. We grew up with other children. We learned how to interact with other people. Now a lot of time spent, again, because of what happened over the last few years, everything was four back into the house. So a lot of time is spent on what I call anti-social media because we're just our children and the next generations are all disconnecting from real life. They're disconnecting from real people and that disconnection is causing some, you know, it has to cause a mental breakdown within the brain. So I just think we've, we should be looking at this as a society and saying how can we improve on where we are now. How can we

one of the key focuses for me is on, as I said, social, the social, anti-social media. So you wouldn't hand a 13-year-old car keys and say, there you go now, off you go, go and drive that car. But parents are buying mobile phones and handing to children and not teaching them. You know, rules, regulations,

some sort of discipline. And I'm speaking from first-hand experience because I'm one of those mothers, even though I tried to put some structure in place by putting discipline in for my life. If we can't do it ourselves, then we're going to struggle to teach our children how to do it. So I think there's a whole re-education around, like, technologies come in so quickly. It's caught up on us, and we need to start managing that better before we can teach our children

how to handle it, how to manage it, and then our children will follow suit and they'll see what we're doing. My hope is in 10 years' time that there's no mobile phones, and we'll go back to the old days. My girls often said to me in recent years, we wish we grew up in your times because they didn't have the pressures, even the, you know, comparing themselves to others and everybody shows the best side. Oh look at me, I'm on the holidays and having a brilliant time. They may have been killing each other, tearing their heads off five minutes before that, but all of a sudden, here I am and I look absolutely gorgeous out on the beach. That's not reality. Reality is families go

off. They have family time together. They have discussions. They have all of that has slowly been eroded. And I think it's key to bringing it back in. It's going to be the key to. to healing the mental health issues that we have in this country. Speaking of, onto you in, speaking of obviously isolation, what Alain just brought up there. So, Ireland is one of the lowest, it is actually the lowest funded country in the EU for community and sport, you activities. Is that a missed opportunity for mental health for young people? Yeah, big time, Carl, like you look at community sport brings people together.

And it's an outlet for them. And you look at even add more hours up the road. They're looking for four million funding. and it hasn't been allocated yet and they would have the best of facilities up there. Even in the council, we've agreed to give them 43 grand to do up the changing rooms and that was a year ago and here we are 43 grand just lying there dormant. So that could be like a boost for everyone, all the good people on the Committee of Up and Artmore would be delighted to have a brand new facilities but it hasn't happened.

Like from 4 million, you need to compete with the likes of Joe's, Cabin Thiele, whereas there's so many good footballers in Bray, whereas if they had better facilities, it encourages young lads to actually stay in Bray and not go out to the likes of Joe's in Cabo. That's just a small example. And then you look at even around the areas like GA clubs, like Brayem has the best facilities, but that's all done through themselves, not through the government.

Like they sold land years ago, but they've developed it, and it's like a business over there, and it's phenomenal. If you haven't been over there, it's great, and my daughter plays there, I loves it. And that's what you need.

You want your kids going to place where it's not just a shitty field. They're going out there, and it's like they've got good facilities, good showers, good change rooms, and then the way teams come away and they go, Jay's that was great up there and Brian. That's what you want,

and that's what, going back to, it's all down to funding. Like, there's 3 million allocated to the library up in Valley Waterfront, and that's just 3 million, whereas Aramore are more looking for 4. Now, it's education and it's worth. There should be more pumped into,

but I'm 7 million lying dormant for the Harbour redevelopment here, and it's like, the money's being divvied out, but it's not being, like, it's just everything stagnant, it's all, and it's like, this is 2025, and you're looking at other countries. Like, if you went to Brody, you go,

Jay, this is state of art, whereas Bray's just the side of Dublin, it's like, well, we got here, and it's a shame. Same with the oxen even. Yeah, the boxing. The idea that Bray wouldn't have 5, 6, 7. Sorry, man.

The idea that Bray wouldn't have 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, boxing clubs all over this town. Like, it's, that's insane. Like, it's a fighting town. It's a boxing town, obviously, with Katie and other, yeah, exactly, what a phenomenal boxers that the town is produced. But, like, I mean, as somebody who runs a martial arts club, I know how difficult it is to find the premises.

It's practically impossible. You know, if we ever lose air place, touch, well, you never will. We won't find another one. this town and we'll probably have to go elsewhere, you know. And it's, that that speaks to the lack of priority. And we know that sport is one of these things that acts as a, you know, a kind of a line of defence against mental health challenges and what have you. So that should be the bare minimum, especially in something like boxing and football. Like, you know, people are torn up if you put the facilities into place. Yeah, definitely. Like, you even look at Katie Howes, a prime example,

like she fought in her kitchen and he had the boxing club built for her and she's an icon. She's idolised by everybody and all walks life all across the world everybody loves Katie Taylor for what she represents and she came from O'Court like you know what I mean and that's then you've done in there's down as well she's coming from Deer Park and there's so many kids with eyeballs on it but you haven't got the facilities then to drop into the go whereas and there's boxing

club and a scary little faster all have one but it's only in a hall you haven't got a set up boxing ring there's top end boxing but facility wise it's it's more new to what the potential is there and if you've got good there and if you've got good for it's a job see is a daily of all the good people he has there so it's like it's such a

missed opportunity like you've early boats that run here on a Saturday. And that's just come from people's goodness coming down here. I mean, really need not really the facilities, but there's no other, no Bray running club,

but they're trying out in Changana Park. So there's not really, like that's say like Bray's missing out on so much goodness, like it's crazy in this day and age. And if you want to tie it back to even what Elaine was speaking about there in terms of children and constantly,

you know, being on their phone and breaking that contact between another human being and how that can create, you know, resilience just from interacting with other humans. Like you set up facilities so kids who come from low socioeconomic backgrounds who can go and go and play basketball or go and play football or go and play tennis or whatever it is.

And that's funded through the government. That's also an hour that you're taking them away from being on a digital screen as well, an hour when they're interacting with other kids. And obviously the benefits of that long term is going to be huge. Definitely. As the line of saying about our daughters, like we grew up with that where we evolved through the technology and came with us. Like internet wasn't there when I was a child.

And then it was, and then you look at like our kids just bought into that digital world. So it's looking at their screens, their phones. And because every single one of us, as adults do it, the kids think, that's the norm, we're just head down buried into the phone. So it's just a social thing. It's a global thing. It's not just like you're a bad parent because the child's glued to the tablet or whatever. It's actually just ingrinding us, which is scary.

And whereas we know we can step away from it, go hike and go wherever. Whereas kids think this is the real world. But it's not, like... Well, it is their real world. Yeah, it's definitely. Yeah. Yeah. But like we've, I said, we evolved, why you make.

So we know it's not real, but the kids think it is real. So it's a, you know what I mean? It's a double-sided sort, as you say. So it's crazy. And then going back to funding as well, just hit me there. Like last year, sorry, Eiffling Kennedy worked really hard to get a grant for the community center, and Littlebray, $125,000. And then it still hasn't been allocated.

You get me? So it's still more money just sitting there, whereas you need the adjustment rooms done up. Do you want solar panels on the roof and everyone in fast for all benefit? But again, it's just sitting there waiting. So what's the hold of the money? government we're just playing the government yeah but it is though I don't know like you know like the harbour happens the money is given from the government to the council and it's so it's sports and community capital grant and that's divvied out so say it was like

6.4 million or whatever two years ago it's probably gone up but like it's 18 months later and it's still waiting for so they get to know that they're going to get yeah we're still right yeah exactly yeah and you look at as well like I said to come back to the harbour like that's seven million allocated three years ago seven million's not seven million do you know what I mean so inflation and interest so seven million three years ago it's going to cost you more than seven million now so it's just more money more money and it's just yeah and then like you look at you're paying into all your property tax and i was like where the roads are going to shite so where's your money going like it's crazy um another one the european commission 2023 founder alan uh ranked among

the loneliest uh especially young people loneliness demographic loneliest country in the EU um what do you think's driving that isolation obviously you've touched on um um you know, social media, but that's, you know, across the entire world. So why in Ireland in particular are young people struggling with isolation and loneliness, do you think? Just big disconnect with everything. I've said, like, if you look at Katie Taylor as an idol, and then kids don't have any places to go to actually get away from their own world, so you just stay in their bedrooms, and then it's like,

sure, what's out there in the real world? And then you're looking at the news, and every day you look at the news, the world's ending, like fucking World War III, nuclear disaster. And then we actually go out so it's actually not too bad. You're just, we're all brainwashed, do you know what I mean? Like, it's like we're just, I know the world is nasty, but there is a good side. And when you're actually in your communities, geez, life's great when you actually get out and about and actually just... What a walk through.

That's where I will do for you. That's it. Yeah, but like the best people you meet is in counts of the distance. I know I'd swear by that. Like my mother and father are salt to the earth, my friends, mother and fathers, and like, it's just the bad eggs in everyone. And you look at the people in government, though. I mean, is this what called? The people in government, they're more corrupt than fucking anyone on my own.

You know? That's a God's honest. You look at like where's all their money going? It's their money. And they're off chatting around doing this, that, and the other and then it's like, I'm at your fault, you didn't pay your TV license, you're all right, it's wrong though.

It's like, we're the badgoers, but really, and then you look at all this Epstein show you're coming out, where's all these arrests? Like, you know what I'm not a bad guy? You're not a bad guy. Just like, yeah, well, Ramvalon, if you want me to have. That's cold. That's cold, go ahead.

Just before we kind of, if we are wrapping up on the whole screens, which we may come back to it again, but if we don't, I brought up a couple of books. I thought it had a nice little desk, not to me. Next time, next time. We might graduate at the next time. But I brought up a couple of books because, again, when my girls were, say, 12, 13, I was conscious of all of this technology coming in,

and I wasn't sure I wasn't aware of myself of what effect it would have on them. So I started to read a bit, and there was a couple of very good books at the time, Glow Kids, as said, is one of them. And that was the first book that really made it resonate with me, that the likes of social media and not just social media, those games that the fast games that they play, what are they called?

The young dads players? All of those. Yeah, all of those. They all have, they all send the very same signal back to the brain as heroin or cocaine. So they're the equivalent of digital. heroin or digital cocaine. So every time they pick up, a girl picks up a phone or a boy picks up whatever, they're actually waiting for that hit. And normally it doesn't come because

they're either unhappy with all the gorgeous, gorgeous looking girls that they're seeing or the girls with boyfriends and they haven't got a boyfriend and all of this. So they're constantly judging themselves based on what they're seeing on this technology. But the hit, the brain doesn't know this. It can't recognize between both. And there's where the addiction's kicking in. There's where every single time to put the phone down, it has to pick back up again because I might get to hit this time. So those books are very good because they educate me around, well, this could be what's coming next if I don't become aware of all of this myself. So I think there's a re-education. I don't think it's all doom and gloom. I think parents can take that power

back. And I'm very, very adamant. I saw Simon Harris is coming out today. They want to ban all under 16-year-olds from social media, again, back to government control and overreach and all of that. It's a parent's decision and I think as a parent, we should be the ones that are standing up and saying, no, you're not making us produce our digital ID. You're not putting us onto a platform to serve your purpose, because you're not really trying to protect the children. That's not their ultimate goal here. It's to bring in digital ID through the back door and get everybody online. And I think it's important that the more people that are speaking about, this is a event because the more people that are gathering in rooms and having conversations about

this kind of stuff, the more people do go back and speak to other people and say, I'm not participating, but I am looking after my child and help other children if you can. So I just think it's probably worth mentioning that the whole digital ID is coming in through the back door. It's going to be very easy for them to bring our children on it. Yeah. You're saying they'll brand this as we're doing this to protect your children, but underneath it there's a more sense of. Well, everybody will have to provide ID. It's not, they're making out as if it's to prevent children under the age of 16

and access to social media because they're sort of going to ask for your PPS number and they're going to ask for all these details. But once you start inputting that information up there, then you're part of the whole process. Because you're going to have to prove. Even if you're in your 50s, like me, I'll still have to prove that I'm not under 16 because they won't know whether that photograph of me is real, whether my name is real, whether anything is real.

So all they're going to do is bring everybody up on the same platform. So again, I'm going back to it's a parental, it's a parental right. We bring these children into the world. We should look after them. I think most people want to take that response. Less government control, more bringing back to the family unit. Yeah, absolutely. Rob, last point, Ireland being the loneliest country in the EU, social isolation.

What do you think is causing it from a systemic issue? Well, I mean, I think one thing that, just to be a lot of the country, it's obviously a multi-layered question and there's a lot of responses to it, but just a zero in on one kind of government failure on how I think it has a certain level of a knock-on impact in terms of social isolation.

Like, the housing crisis is, you know, I know people bang on about it a lot, but it's so, it's the extent to which it's causing disruption to the way people had been living their lives. In what way does it disrupt young people? For example, right?

People, because they, can't move out until they're well into their 30s typically. They're having less children and they're having children later in life. So you're first friends when you're growing up by your siblings, you know, but there's a lot more only children now. There's a lot more, you know, two children, two children families. And so that starts it off. And also then when you walk out onto the road, like when I grew up in a council state as well,

it was a sea of young people running around the place. But all these big families, they don't exist anymore. People are like, you've been doing well to start having kids when you're 25, 36. and get beyond two, three, max, you know. And then beyond that, the kind of broader family kind of structure is starting to break down. Because let's say if you grow up in a place like, you know, one of the housing states in Centre Bray, you're going to find it very difficult unless you're a very high earner to be able to boy somewhere when you're starting out your family somewhere close to your existing community and your broader,

your extended family. So you're going to be away from your cousins, you're going to be away from your aunties, your uncles, you know, you're going to be spending a lot of time in the car going to them from the home. You're going to see less of your parents. Your parents are going to be doing long commutes. So there's all these kind of factors that stem from, they're kind of unintended consequences of a government's mishandling of something like housing.

But it's really disrupting not only the size of families, but how isolated they are. And people are isolated, not just, you know, as children or as teens. You have to think about the kind of old, the isolation that kicks in with older people then as well. because, you know, so many people now, they'll have two or three kids, probably going to lose one or two to Australia, you know. And then if they have another child that does remain in Ireland, they're not necessarily going to be staying here.

They might have to go down to Wexford or somewhere like Gorey or whatever, you know what I mean, if they start it out in Bray. And, you know, they're going to see very, very little of their kids, their grandkids. And it's just the breakdown of these relationships that comes about. Yeah, you're not going to see three generations in the same estate anymore. No, no. Whereas before you would. No, exactly.

And it wouldn't just be the parents that raised the children. Exactly, yeah, yeah. It was more of a community effort when kids were being brought up previously. And like I said, you're not going to have as many cousins and you're not going to see them if you do. So I think it's, now that's only one aspect of why people are ending up more isolated, but I think it's a valid one. Does anyone have any questions?

We have time for one or two if anyone's brave enough to ask a question, or once to ask a question. No? Surely. All right, we'll leave it there, then round of applause for our government, Callow. Well done. All right, well done. Yeah, okay, actually, go on doing that before we have.

Go ahead there. Sorry now. Sorry, sorry. Sorry. I was like, I'm right on time. I was delighted about myself. I really won't keep you much longer, but myself, Rob and Ian were chatting before we had this talk. And I'm going to leave this document with Carol, because I think it's very important and I think it's very interesting, but it's very important to people again.

are aware. This is a report that was done back in 2021 and it's basically assessing young people's mental health in Ireland. It was done by a London School of Economics and Political Science, but it's Irish children. And there's just one or two very worrying statistics in here because the document is five years old. Anxiety between, in children in Ireland, between the ages of not to four, there was a thousand children. That's babies. who were diagnosed with anxiety in Ireland in 2021. But that figure goes up to 76,000 children under the age of 17 who were diagnosed with anxiety.

That's five years ago. And there's all the different ADHD, ASD, bipolar, etc. In total, there was 180,000 diagnosis of children in Ireland in 2021 of mental disorders. And I just think that that's something that we really, really have to look at as a nation and as a whole. And then another statistic that's worth mentioning is in the first nine months of 2025, there was 38,000 antidepressants issued to children. So that's 50,000 in last year. Over one year, antidepressants were issued to children. And we were having a chat saying there's other ways to treat children

other than give them tablets. And Rob, you had a couple of suggestions on that. Yeah, no, this isn't the demonise, you know, medication. And it can, it can, can help some people absolutely and but I think and this is something that we've been trying to deal with with in Keller is that if you turn up to your doctor tomorrow in the depths of mental health crisis he can give you medication on the spot but if you if you want to be referred for therapy services you're going to be waiting months so I think that is bound to trigger an over-alliance or an you know over-prescribing of medication and I'm not saying that you know doctors are wrong to do it like I mean if you bring your child in and they're absolutely climbing

the walls and the first the only available solution put before you is medication you're probably going to say yeah you know but um if if immediate therapy was available you might say well let's try that first but if that option isn't open to you well then you know i think that is going to prompt kind of an over-reliance of medication do you think that they we we deal with these issues in isolation instead of having some sort of a system in place um yeah i mean obviously there's there's mental health crisis where something there needs to be a major intervention you know um and that's a little bit different to maintain a good mental health. And I'd say it'd be pretty disheartening

if you went into your doctor and he said, have you tried going for a walk? But at the same time, I think there is a lot to be said for a more holistic approach. I'll say on that though. They do have lots of research in the US about social prescribing where people go in for things like anxiety, like depression,

and instead of dealing with it in terms of just medication, they put them on programs where they go do community-based stuff you know, deal with teams and stuff like that. I've seen that where there's already said. The health markers drop, like, increased

significantly and all the issues that they have seem to go away. So, like, in terms of that holistic, you know, approach, I think that obviously needs to be, you know, factored in with, obviously, medication as well. Yeah, I've seen that Malta, the government has

recently made gym membership free. I own a gym, so I'm right behind that. Yeah, yeah, cool. But, you know, I mean, obviously, like, Things like, you know, looking after your health is a factor. Everything for your diet, your social circles, the clubs you're involved in all by a row. But yeah, I think medication should be our first part of call. But I think the way things are structured and the lack of access to mental health services

certainly seems to be bringing that about. All right, we'll live it there. Well done. Thank you. All right.