Call for a national
suicide authority

THE Sinn Fein motion put forward at the recent meeting of Louth County Council by Cllr Munster calling for the setting up of a national suicide authority to link up all the organisations working to prevent suicide must be welcomed and supported.

Deputy Gerry Adams has also brought this up in the Dail.

He also pointed out that the report of the Mental Health Commission indicates that 106 children were admitted to adult mental health units last year, a quarter of all child admissions.

He also said that the clinical psychologist and CEO of St Patrick’s University Hospital has said that the state is failing these young people.

This copuntry ranks fourth highest in the suicide rate amongst 15-24-year-olds in the EU.

That’s one young person every 18 days dying from suicide.

Deputy Adams said that ten years ago A Vision for Change was launched as a mental health strategy but it has not been implemented.

Cllr Munster’s motion states that the steady rise in suicides in Ireland in recent years is very alarming and as well as linking up the voluntary organisations and services active in suicide prevention, the Government needs to increase funding to organisations.

The television presenter Ruby Wax, who is also a psychotherapist, has also come up with a good idea.

She wants to see an organisation established wereby people can meet and discuss their problems.

A woman of supreme wit and intellengce, she said she has always been amazed how a bunch of drunks could manage to organise one of the world’s most successful self-help organisations.

She has spoken and written about her own depression, and wants to get rid of the stigma surrounding mental health.

This is the only way forward and the Government needs to get wise to these facts.