Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
OVER THE WEEKEND, a claim spread online that the government has cut the budget for mental health services by €20 million.
It was much tweeted, the subject of a widely-shared column on TheLiberal.ie (“It’s absolutely despicable to see the government cut mental health funding by €20 million”), and articulated by comedians and activists the Rubberbandits.
Alison Ring from Sligo asked us to look into it, and another reader pointed specifically to the Rubberbandits’ tweet.
(Send your FactCheck requests to factcheck@thejournal.ie, tweet @TJ_FactCheck, or send us a DM).
Claim: The government has cut €20 million from the mental health budget
Verdict: FALSE
What was said
You can watch a video of Helen McEntee’s comments, and a breakdown of the facts, above.
Although the claim of a €20 million cut has been widespread, we are focusing on the Rubberbandits’ tweet, due to the specific request of a FactCheck reader.
They claimed:
The Irish government just cut €20 million from the mental health budget.
The claim that the government had cut €20 million from the mental health budget emerged last week, after Minister of State for Mental Health and Older People, Helen McEntee stated in the Dáil:
In line with my commitment to achieve a full-year allocation of €35 million in additional funding for mental health, I am initiating €35 million in new services for 2017…
As has been widely acknowledged, and as I acknowledged last week, the time lag in new staff taking up posts, and the completion of other preparations for the introduction of these services, it is estimated that the revenue spend in the calendar year for 2017, associated with this increased allocation will be some €15 million.
In other words, €35 million worth of additional mental health services are being started in 2017, but because those services aren’t entirely ready to come on stream yet, only €15 million will be spent on them next year.
Note that these are additional services, and the amounts involved relate to increased spending on mental health.
This reality is in contrast to the impression brought about in many cases, that the total mental health budget itself amounts to only €35 million, and that it will be €20 million lower in 2017 than it is now.
For example, this sentence from a column in TheLiberal.ie:
In 2016 it really does beggar belief that, if the Dáil rumours are true, and Simon Harris cuts the mental health budget for 2017 by €20 million from €35 million to €15 million, that the entire country doesn’t take to the streets over it.
This is wrong by a massive margin.
According to figures in this year’s HSE National Service Plan, the total budget for mental health services in Ireland is €826.6 million.
This is composed of €791.6 million in the HSE budget, and €35 million that came from the Department of Health.
In April, it emerged that €12 million of that €35 million was to be diverted elsewhere in the health services, but after a public outcry, it was reinstated.
The Department of Health told FactCheck that in 2017, there would be additional spending of €15 million on mental health services, as well as a further €9.7 million in extra staff costs – meaning the total increased spending on mental health services next year is expected to be €24.7 million.
As well as this, the government has budgeted €50 million to begin work on the National Forensic Mental Health Hospital at Portrane in North Co Dublin.
However, this is capital spending, and is counted separately, but it accounts for Helen McEntee’s tweet in response to the Rubberbandits, in which she claimed the government is “spending €74.7 million more on mental health next year than this year”.
This isn’t quite right, because she is comparing current and capital spending in 2017, with only current spending in 2016.
Figures in the 2016 HSE National Service Plan suggest that a total of €5.33 million was budgeted for capital infrastructure spending on mental health this year (pg 131, 132).
So if you include capital infrastructure in both years, next year’s spending will be at least €901.3 million, which is €69.37 million higher than the €831.93 million in 2016, not €74.7 million higher.
In any case, the gross, non-capital budget for mental health in 2017 is €851.3 million – a 3% increase over 2016.
And in addition to this, €50 million in new capital spending will go on starting the construction of the National Forensic Mental Health Hospital.
The claim that the mental health budget has been cut is therefore FALSE.
“Reversal”
What is true, is that this increase in current spending is not as high as had been expected.
In his Budget speech, Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe gave no details on mental health spending, but Minister of State Helen McEntee did, in a press conference later that evening (starts 3:19):
I’m happy to say that I will be able to initiate €35 million in new developments next year. As has been the case with previous years, funding initiated will not always be completed in the same year…
Despite the somewhat ambiguous disclaimer contained in the second half of this, McEntee did not state the full reality – that only €15 million would be spent in 2017.
The only figure mentioned was €35 million, which gave rise to the mistaken impression that this was the amount that would be spent on new services in 2017.
So when McEntee clarified the situation in the Dáil a week later – explaining that only €15 million would in fact be spent on new services next year – it led to a wave of criticism from opposition politicians and activists, and accusations of a “reversal” in the Budget commitment.
But there was no “cut” to the budget. Spending on mental health in 2017 will be higher than spending on mental health in 2016.
The Rubberbandits did not respond to FactCheck’s request for evidence in support of their widely-shared claim on Twitter.
However, they did later post on Facebook:
While the €35 million that was promised towards mental health was indeed cut by €20 million, it’s still an increase from last year. There’s also funding behind a new forensic mental health hospital in Portrane. Things are improving, but not as much as they should.
TheJournal.ie’s FactCheck is a signatory to the International Fact-Checking Network’s Code of Principles. You can read it here.
For information on how FactCheck works, what the verdicts mean, and how you can take part, check out our Reader’s Guide here.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
It’s time to tax the super rich.
@James Joseph: it’s time to tax vulture funds and not raising welfare a fiver a week and cutting the Xmas bonus would save a billion a year! They don’t want to collect more from the lpt due to an imminent election. When the shit hits the fan again and the analysis starts , fg won’t have been found to be a prudent set of hands , believe me !
Enda lied. Leo made it worse & Harris hasn’t a clue. FG don’t care about ordinary citizens suffering this way – they only care about themselves & their wealthy influencers. Never wasting a vote on that rotten party again.
@Setrakian: unfortunately it won’t matter who you vote in . government departments are run by long term civil servants with no accountability. Harris is just a public face of the system.until we get accountability it just goes on and on
Great week for the government. Over 10000 on trolleys and 10000 homeless. Should give themselves a raise
@Shaun Gallagher: don’t give the parasites ideas.
@Shaun Gallagher: they just did in October. Another 900 a year.1%.
@Shaun Gallagher: homelessness is a worldwide problem, there is 16000 homeless in NI under SF watch
@Patrick O Connell: So Parrick you are happy with the amount of people who have no home to call their own? There should be no one homeless in this Country if we had a Government that would put Ireland first.
Gotten to the stage where I’d happily vote to bar all serving TD’s and ministers from holding private health insurance.
Let them experience having to use the public health service is the only way to get things sorted.
@Mill Lane: that’s an inspired idea! Won’t happen though the piggies at the trough wouldn’t allow it!
If there was ever a major rail or aviation crash the system would crash. God help us all. Senior management are not up to running the HSE and the Dept of Health are at war with each other wasting money.
@Martin Sinnott: If you had an accident and woke up in one of our hospitals, you would think that there had been some sort of natural disaster such is the scale of the issue. It’s complete carnage. People everywhere. Fair play to the nurses and staff that work in those conditions
@Martin Sinnott: get rid of the gormless failure Simon Harris, finish your studies Simon and let a competent adult take over…
@Gus Sheridan: But who? And could anyone honestly make a difference at this point? Just take the recent situation with the mortuary in Waterford, there’s a written history of that going back to at least 2004 when State Pathologist Prof Marie Cassidy had written about her concerns regarding it. In 2017 a body had to be taken to another hospital as there was no room in Waterford, it’s this history of poor conditions that drove Prof Rob Landers to write and complain about the mortuary in University Hospital Waterford. Yet the Taoiseach could find no evidence to support it. Did he look?
No dignity for patients, no peace of mind for relatives but at least people can google what’s wrong with them on their high speed broadband or take great comfort knowing that the tax payer is shelling out billions to build a children’s hospital for consultants to make their fortune in the private clinics.
The public & hospital staff know it’s ‘unacceptable overcrowding…’ but where is the URGENCY from Government to adequately tackle the emergency?Plus over 700,000 people on hospital waiting lists,this is unacceptable also….but where is the URGENCY to adequately tackle this?There seems to be a sence of tolerance from Government re ‘unacceptable’ hospital overcrowding,massive hospital waiting lists etc otherwise these ‘unacceptable’conditions wouldn’t be allowed continue year after year!
Don’t worry soon they will all have broadband to stem the boredom.
10,000 in the corridors and at least another 10,000 on the streets , ahhh sure it’s a great wee country , Fu(kin 1st world country on its way back to 3rd world
@Karllye kripton: on its way back?…….
Vote fine gael, fair play to everyone. I’m alright John.
You voted for them so what do you expect !!!!.
Almost 70 years of complacency and you still vote for them.
Before you whinge “who else is there” , how do you know unless you try.
FFFG were democratically elected and this is what you get.
Nothing will ever change until both parties are removed.
But realistically we all know they’ll be in power for a long time to come
Dont worry about it Simon and Leo have appropriated MINIMUM €12 million to fund abortion “services”. You voted for it. Now reap the consequences
@Ismise Máire: whst has this to do with abortion ? This is the result of bad managment and greedy managers.
Shocking. Wouldn’t happen in the private sector because management would be fired and not have public service protection
Ireland, A ship of fools or Banana Republic, take your pick.
I was one of those people..went into hospital in severe pain did not see a doctor fr 12HRS..LIKE A FIELD HOSPITAL..
I’d wager that out of those 10,000 people that were on trolly’s how many were actually serious enough to warrant the need of a bed and how many could have been dealt by out of hours doc.
I saw one night I had to present to ED as I thought I was having a heart attack. There was a mother her kid had a high temp the mother started getting shouty so a nurse came out and asked did you present to caredoc first the mother replied no and was told she’ll be dealt with in rotation. There was a man and woman with a child who vomiting. The point been if people used caredoc for the minor ailments then the figure wouldn’t be 10,000 another thing a fee of €50 should be threatened for cases deemed not warranting specialist care like turning up with a cold or cough or vomiting.
Is it patients or is it patient days. Neither is good but knowing this confirms absolutely as I recall this being an issue before.
have your say