The Republic's economic boom has resulted in better physical health but a decline in the nation's psychological health, medical and economic experts said yesterday.
Addressing a symposium on Suffering from Success: The Health Effects of the Economic Boom, at the annual meeting of the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO), Michael Fitzgerald, professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at Trinity College Dublin, said the Celtic Tiger had been bad for people's mental health.
"The Irish mental health service has been abandoned by the Celtic Tiger," he said. "Between 1997 and 2003 the mental health budget dropped from 11 per cent of the total health budget to 6.7 per cent. It needs to be at least 12.5 per cent of the total budget," Prof Fitzgerald said. Citing research that showed 60 per cent of 14- to 15-year-olds in Dublin had been offered illicit substances compared to 37 per cent of a similar age living in Rome, he blamed the increasing isolation of children from adults for an increase in psychological disorders. "The warehousing of families in dormitory towns with the associated stress of long-distance commuting is a major problem. How can you parent after three to four hours of commuting every day?"
Prof Fitzgerald told the meeting it is estimated that there are 18,000 people in the State under the age of 15 with depression, with almost 45,000 suffering from conduct disorders.
"The Celtic Tiger has betrayed our children and adolescents with mental health problems and special needs," he said. "We now live in a Darwinian society of the survival of the fittest."
Dr Emer Shelly, consultant in public-health medicine with the Health Service Executive, told doctors there has been an overall improvement in Irish people's physical health in recent years. While half of all deaths were from cardiovascular disease in 1980, now just over a third of all deaths were from heart disease and stroke.
She noted that life expectancy for older people had also improved. "But the rising tide did not lift all boats," Dr Shelly said, "with the 2006 census showing that a low percentage of Travellers reach old age compared with the rest of the population."
Jim Power, chief economist with Friends First, told doctors there had been too much emphasis on the quantity of economic growth but not enough emphasis on its quality. "In my view lifestyles have changed, but the quality of life has not improved".