Debate contribution: PSNI: Pressure due to Health System Failings

Debate contribution by Miss Órlaithí Flynn on 1 December 2025.

MLA

Miss Órlaithí Flynn

Party at the time

Sinn Féin

Date

1 December 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

PSNI: Pressure due to Health System Failings

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5269437

Read the official Assembly record

Text

As Sinn Féin spokesperson on mental health and as chairperson of the all-party group on suicide prevention, I start by saying plainly that it is not sustainable or acceptable that the police have become the default response to mental health crises in our society. That is not to pin blame specifically on the Minister of Health. We all understand that the issues cut across every Department and are the responsibility of every Department at some level, so we all have a role to play. The motion is fair in respect of what the police have to deal with and cope with at present. It is not fair on them as an organisation in terms of what duties they should be freed up to carry out. It is also not fair on the individual who is in that state of mental health crisis, psychosis or whatever the situation may be. It is not appropriate that that is being dealt with by a police officer as opposed to a healthcare clinician.

I thank the Member for her intervention. Sadly, that is the reality. Too many people are not receiving the appropriate care in time and are losing their lives as a result. Again, that is not to pin it all on whether they have been handled appropriately by the PSNI if officers had been dealing with them. It is not to pin it on emergency department waits or mental health waiting lists. This is a problem that we all need to take responsibility for. You cannot pin it on Health or Justice. Alan spoke passionately on behalf of his party. I am conscious that it is his colleague who holds the Health portfolio. We all understand where the Minister is coming from. He simply does not have enough money to put into crisis services or to put some of those models in place. What needs to come from the debate, however, is what can be done at whatever level, whether it is Executive level or different parties or Ministers coming together to see how we can make it work better and maybe speed up the Right Care, Right Person approach so that we are not losing lives in the meantime, as Linda pointed out. Colin said that the PSNI responded to over 100 "concern for safety" calls per day. Think about it: that is per day, so it is obviously taking up a massive amount of police time. Again, it comes back to whether the person who needs the help and support is receiving it regardless of how much police time is taken up. Probably not. Points were made about the strategy, and, again, it comes back to the funding. The Minister can fully implement the mental health strategy, Protect Life 2, only if his budget will allow him to do that. However, it still needs to be —.

Yes, I will.

I thank the Member for that intervention. I spent a bit of time with them when they were introducing the multi-agency triage teams, which have been fantastic, with police working alongside mental health practitioners and the Ambulance Service. I am also conscious of the successful custody suites pilot where a mental health practitioner assessed the prisoners coming in, as opposed to a forensic medical officer doing it. I was going to make that point. I am not sure if the custody suite pilot has since fallen because we could not get match funding. I am not sure that it was match funding, but Health and Justice were funding that together at one stage, so there are good examples and models of practice that we can look to. If we could expand those on a regional basis and if Health and Justice worked in tandem to do those things, that would have an impact on the person or patient in mental health distress. We can talk all night about things that might be holding the Minister back in moving forward with some of this stuff — funding is a problem — but how do we build on the good pilots that have already been in place? Just last week, the Health Committee visited the Mater Hospital and the path project. I know that we will write to the Minister about that anyway, but, again, that is another wonderful example of what is happening in the Mater Hospital when people have been assessed and are suffering with really poor mental health. That ward has been set up to take them out of the emergency department ward to a place where they are safe and have one-to-one care and treatment, and that frees up the police officers and the social workers, who do not need to stay with them. However, the path project is not being funded by the Department; the trust is managing that itself at the minute. If we can look at the good models and good examples that we can build on, that might ease a wee bit of pressure on both Health and Justice.

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

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 14:03 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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