Tim O’Malley seems to be following the line well trodden by junior health ministers in being insensitive regarding Mental health. Jim McDaid did it when he called those who commit suicide selfish. O’Malley seems to have done the same by telling the Irish Medical News

There’s a very strong view with a lot of people that depression and mental illness is not a medical condition, that it’s part of life’s events that people get depressed or get unhappy”. 

He then said that often people were diagnosed as mentally ill when in days gone by ” people had much more time to liaise with each other and discuss things. . . if there were difficulties people discussed those difficulties and sorted them out”.

It’s not often that you’ll get me agreeing with Breda O’Brien but her article in the Irish Time on November 11th is worth a read. 

To imply that years ago there was no such thing as depression, only unhappiness, is to risk restigmatising those who have serious mental illnesses. It is not true that years ago there were no depressed people. What is true is that years ago, people with serious depression and psychotic illnesses were incarcerated, often for a lifetime, because there was no real alternative. Mental hospitals were shocking and frightening places because of the severity of symptoms suffered by patients.

O’Brien continues by saying it is time for a debate but there has already been an extensive debate in mental  health service survivor circles on the (over) medicalisation of mental illness. Advocacy groups have grown and new social movements have developed. There is debate and dialogue between service users, advocates, and medical professionals. I don’t think the Minister’s comments add to this debate at all. Reactive and clinical depression are different things, the Minister fails to acknowledge this in his comments. Over prescription of certain medications is accepted by all to have happened – however this does not mean that there is not a crisis in the mental health service in Ireland and a continuing stigma around mental health illness and disability.

And of course mental health services are the Cinderella of the health service in this country. Resources in terms of multil disciplinary teams and talk therapies and support for people diagnosed with depression are severely lacking. The Minister’s prescription is to tell people that they aren’t really depressed and of course there isn’t a problem – typical Irish solution to a problem.