Inspire Public Affairs Update 23/02/26

Week commencing 23/02/2026

Inspire’s public affairs update is your source for the latest Northern Ireland Assembly discussions relevant to mental health, addiction, intellectual disability and autism. 

Our aim is to inform the public, our colleagues and the people who use Inspire services about pertinent issues in the political space, issues that should always be informed by the voice of lived experience. 

 On 16th February, Órlaithí Flynn MLA made a member’s statement on alcohol-specific deaths.

• She confirmed that 397 alcohol‑specific deaths were recorded in 2024 (2.2% of all deaths), a rise of over 80% since 2014.
• People in the most deprived areas are almost four times more likely to die from alcohol‑related causes than those in the least deprived areas.
• She said that men account for nearly two‑thirds of deaths, though the rate among women has increased sharply.
• Most deaths occur among people aged 45–64, individuals who should still be central to family and community life.
• She stated that alcohol dependence is closely linked with untreated mental ill health, including depression, anxiety and trauma.
• “I want to be clear that alcohol dependence does not exist in isolation. Those deaths are inseparable from the reality of co-occurring mental ill health, such as depression, anxiety and deep trauma, that too often goes untreated.”

She later introduced a debate on mental health data.

• She suggested that current data is incomplete, inconsistent and unreliable, making it impossible to track waiting lists, outcomes, demand or workforce needs.
• Northern Ireland has no statutory requirement to publish mental health performance data and no regional dashboard, she said.
• She also referenced the severe pressures on mental health services: high suicide rates, long waiting lists, workforce shortages and underfunding.
• Better data is essential for planning, accountability, equality of access, value for money and patient safety.
• Alan Robinson MLA signalled the DUP’s support for the motion, saying that it is difficult to assess whether services are improving people’s mental health and, without outcome measures, it is just as challenging to evaluate what works.
• “It is, therefore, vital that the health service here has the best tools to plan for the future and the very best data-driven evidence to support public services and understand how effective they are,” he said.
• Danny Donnelly MLA said that mental health costs Northern Ireland £3.4 billion a year; however, data is poor, inconsistent and hard to access.
• He added: “Today’s debate is not a technical one about data; it is about the strategic need to better understand how to reform our failing systems. If we do not collect meaningful data, we cannot demonstrate need. If we cannot demonstrate need, we do not commission services. And, if we do not commission services, we create avoidable costs to the patient and to our health system.”
• Endorsing the motion, Alan Chambers MLA said that “for a place as small as Northern Ireland, the structure and delivery of healthcare has been overcomplicated. Having five trusts, each working in a similar way but with some important and distinct differences, has resulted in a pretty uneven picture of mental health data.”
• In his view, the motion addressed a simple but reasonable point: “We cannot build a modern mental health system on incomplete or inconsistent information.”
• According to Colin McGrath MLA, the scale of need demands a standardised, coordinated approach.
• He described a Mental Health Strategy that is being implemented backwards. Community organisations, he said, provide vital support but their work highlights gaps in the wider system.
• He also criticised the Department of Health’s reliance on Encompass as insufficient.
• In response, the Minister of Health, Mike Nesbitt, said that data is essential for delivering consistent, standardised and safe mental health services; without it, services risk being designed around system needs rather than patient needs.
• He confirmed that current information comes from Encompass, community/voluntary sector returns, suicide statistics, PSNI data, self harm registries and addiction datasets.
• He said stated that the Department’s aim is to create a single, standardised dataset with regular public reporting, focusing on outcomes, consistency across trusts and transparency.
• He went on to outline the mental health outcomes framework that has been developed and embedded in Encompass, built around three core questions: how much was done, how well it was done, and whether people are better off.
• “We are not where we want to be yet, but the path is clear: a unified record, standard definitions, validated reporting and outcomes that mean something to the people whom we serve, alongside publications that build public trust.”
• MLAs then adopted the following motion:

That this Assembly recognises the urgent need for accurate and consistent mental health data to support effective planning, delivery and accountability of mental health, addiction and suicide prevention services across health and social care trusts; expresses concern that the absence of a centralised data system and the fragmented approach to data management across trusts have created major gaps in understanding service capacity, demand and outcomes, including information on bed availability, planned versus actual spending, referral numbers, people in contact with support services and performance against waiting-time targets; notes that such information is routinely published in other jurisdictions; believes that that data deficit undermines the effectiveness of the mental health strategy 2021-2031 and transparency across the system; and calls on the Minister of Health to prioritise the creation of a single, standardised mental health data system, with regular public reporting across all trusts, to underpin evidence-based decision-making and improve outcomes for the population.

On 19th February, the Committee for Communities received a briefing on poverty in Northern Ireland from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF).

• Ursula O’Hare, the head of JRF in Northern Ireland, outlined the charity’s recently published study of poverty in the region.
• She stated that the population of people living in poverty in Northern Ireland is almost as large as that of Belfast and suggested that any progress previously made on tackling the issue has stalled. 
• “It’s not simply the scale and depth of poverty that’s important,” she said. “Our greatest concern is with the persistence of poverty.”
• She pointed to “weak financial resilience” and raised particular concerns around rural poverty. Housing costs are also rising and this is a major contributor to spiking poverty levels.
• With respect to in-work deprivation and low pay, she cited the fact that 64% of children living in poverty in Northern Ireland reside in a household in which someone is employed. She outlined JRF’s fear that too many children are growing up in and into poverty.
• She called on the Northern Ireland Executive to enact an anti-poverty strategy that would drive change from the heart of government.

Week commencing 23rd February

Mental Health Champion conference: Building Wellbeing in Young People – 25th February

Lena by Inspire conference: The Heart of Care – 26th February

Written by: