Cork Social Democrats election candidates propose four-day working week

The expansion of CAMHS to cover people up to the age of 25 and the establishment of a four-day working week are among the goals in the Social Democrats’ Mental Health and Worker’s Rights policies, launched by Cork candidates.

The party’s mental-health policy, launched on Tuesday by Liam Quaide, councillor and Cork East general-election candidate and clinical psychologist, outlines how they will be allocating 10% of the health budget to mental health by the end of 2030, if they are elected to government.

Staffing taskforce

The party will aim for all primary and secondary schools to have at least one specialist counsellor/therapist as a permanent staff member by the end of the next government term and introduce a staffing taskforce.

Their policy also recognises the importance of the first three years of life to later mental health and development, by supporting the specialist perinatal and infant mental-health services.

Mr Quaide said: “Our priorities include the immediate lifting of HSE recruitment restrictions currently in force, through the Government’s pay-and-numbers strategy to address critical staffing needs in primary care psychology services, where waiting-lists have escalated to the thousands.

“What we need is each level of mental-health service provision properly resourced, so that shortfalls are not impacting at other levels,” he said, explaining that early intervention psychosis services can prevent the development of chronic mental-health difficulties and properly resourced primary care would reduce the amount of children requiring CAMHS.

The mental-health policy will be kept under constant review, through consultation with professionals, to ensure it is meeting the needs of service users.

Worker' rights policy

The party’s workers’ rights policy was also launched in Cork on Tuesday, by councillor Pádraig Rice, Cork South-Central candidate, and Catherine Murphy, the party’s justice spokesperson.

They propose the introduction of a statutory right to collective bargaining, ensuring that union officials can access workplaces to communicate with both their members and unorganised workers.

The party would also replace the minimum wage with a living wage in two years’ and establish a commission to research, trial, and set out a pathway for the introduction of a four-day working week.

They also aim to legislate to protect workers from being penalised for trade-union membership, create a regular review of the new living-wage benchmark, and expand the scope of bans on zero-hour contracts.