Member's statement: Mental Health

Member's statement by Mr Daniel McCrossan on 3 November 2025.

MLA

Mr Daniel McCrossan

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

3 November 2025

Type

Member's statement

Business

Members' Statements

Heading

Mental Health

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5212845

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I will speak about something that affects every family across the region — mental health — and the shameful failure of the Executive parties to deliver on the commitment that they made to our people. In 2021, the Department of Health published a 10-year mental health strategy, which was ambitious, hopeful and long overdue. It promised a better system: one that would prevent crisis, deliver early intervention and finally give mental health the priority that it deserves. Almost four years later, however, that promise lies in tatters. The recent review of the strategy confirms that, as many of us feared, only £12 million has been invested in 14 actions out of 35. The original strategy required over £1·2 billion in order to deliver fully for the people most impacted on. That means that only a small fraction of what was pledged has been delivered. Let me be clear that it is not a case of a funding gap but, rather, a failure of political will from the Executive parties. People across Northern Ireland are paying the price. Families are left waiting for months, and sometimes for years, for support. Some do not get any support at all. Young people in crisis turn up at overcrowded A&Es because there is nowhere else for them to go. The community and voluntary organisations that hold the system together are being left to survive from hand to mouth while the Executive hide behind excuses about budgets. Mental health services cannot continue to be the first thing cut and the last thing funded. They should be at the very heart of every decision that the Executive make. Indeed, it would serve the Executive parties well if they were to become as vexed about that issue as they are about some of the things that they use in the House to distract from their own failures. Every week in my constituency of West Tyrone, I meet people who are crying out for help: parents whose children cannot get counselling, older people who are struggling with isolation and individuals who feel completely abandoned by the system. They are right to feel abandoned, because that is exactly what has happened. We cannot allow the cycle of strategy without delivery, promises without resources and words without meaning to continue. The Minister of Health and the Executive must fully fund and implement the mental health strategy as originally planned, not the watered-down version that we see lingering through today. They need to invest properly in crisis care, and they need to support the community and voluntary structures that are holding the whole system together. Mental health is not a luxury or an optional extra: it is fundamental. Every life lost to suicide and every family broken is a failure of the Executive. The people of Northern Ireland deserve so much better. They deserve action, and it is high time that the Executive got their priorities in order and delivered in the interests of those who are suffering most.

498 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:46 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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