Cecilia Keaveney (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)

I am delighted to contribute to this most important subject. I am sure many other Members will take the opportunity to add their voices to an issue that should be of great concern to us all. Based on the statistics, I am sure all Members have been touched by this issue in their communities. I endorse the compliments that have been paid to Deputy Neville for his work in this field. We both attended a conference on suicide in Bled, Slovenia, some years ago. Whatever knowledge I had before going there, after two or three days when every aspect of the subject was outlined, I came back much more aware and also horrified.

Since then the committee of which I am chairman has issued a number of reports, including ones on cannabis use, cocaine use and music therapy. We issued a report outlining why alcohol should be included in the substance misuse strategy. Throughout this work, suicide is repeatedly mentioned. Suicide is associated with alcohol and drugs. Potential help is available through non-verbal artistic therapy interventions, although I will not suggest it as a be-all and end-all.

I accept the Minister of State has a great interest in the mental health sector but he should note it is the Cinderella of the health services. The pressures of life, including the speed of life, depersonalisation and relocation without the backup of one's family, are such that we have become a "mé féin nation". The "mé féin nation" is one in which people no longer have the support mechanism of normal conversation, which would normally work out many of the problems stored in people's heads. When problems are stored in people's heads, they feel over time they cannot live with them. Ultimately, through one mechanism or another, they commit suicide.

The successful economy has not helped, which is a terrible thing to say. In a successful economy, we should prioritise the difficulties that arise. In a successful economy people have more money, the pace of life increases and the amount of recreational time available to one decreases. There should be an associated move in the health system to deal with prevention and interventions that are specific to the mental health sector.

We have considered the issue of alcohol. In spite of having created a report, listened to evidence and read the papers, we need to address certain anomalies. The headline of a recent article in the Irish Examiner reads, "Alcohol abuse is Europe's 'third biggest killer'". The article states: "The commissioner will not propose any legislation at EU level but says the member states should enforce their existing legislation better and learn from one another's successes." This is a case of the Commission abdicating responsibility. We are told in Ireland that we cannot deal with alcopops, for instance, because they comprise an EU issue, yet the Commission is saying member states need to deal with the problem themselves. This matter requires redress.

A recent headline in the Irish Independent reads, "Booze-saturated Ireland at top of alcohol abuse poll", and the subheading states, "Politicians failing to tackle binge-drinking epidemic, warns expert". The Joint Committee on Arts, Sport, Tourism, Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs produced its own report which recommended that alcohol be included in the substance misuse strategy. This is not to say every suicide is linked directly to alcohol, but it should be noted that some of those who were half-considering suicide were egged on to do so because alcohol broke down their inhibitions.

The joint committee produced a report on cannabis. Representatives of the committee were in New Zealand where cannabis use is epidemic. In Ireland certain individuals scoff at our being worried about a drug as "soft" as cannabis. Anybody who believes it is "soft" should read our report. Not everyone who takes cannabis will end up psychotic, committing suicide or in desperate circumstances. The problem is that the cannabis on the streets is stronger that it was in the 1960s during which time the people contending it does not present a problem may have been using it.

It is a fact that people are starting to use cannabis at a younger age than was the case in the past. They are starting to use it between the ages of 12 and 20. Anybody who knows anything about the drug will know that one's brain is only forming in these years and that the drug distorts its capacity to develop. When young people taking cannabis reach their mid-20s, they present with psychotic illnesses. We all know schizophrenia and such illnesses can only be controlled and never reversed. We are letting this happen and allowing people to become more vulnerable to the threat of suicide.

There are very many car accidents on our roads at present. One question that remains to be answered concerns the percentage of accidents involving just one driver that result from suicide. Is it more acceptable for one to have died in a car accident than to have committed suicide? This question raises a scary issue. We all know a car can be as lethal a means of taking one's life as any. Suicides contribute to some of the road deaths we hear about on the news on a daily basis.

Music therapy and arts therapy have become a bit of an obsession with me. Deputies were asking what can be done in terms of therapy. In many cases, a person with suicidal tendencies may be very lonely or may have been abused and his or her ability to communicate with others may have broken down. In the main, if people were able to communicate with each other, they would not be forced to take their own lives. We need non-verbal forms of interaction and intervention and one such means is the creative arts. Recommendation No. 4 of the joint committee's report on this matter, which was released in September, is that the Department of Health and Children should recognise the inclusion of creative therapies in mental health policy, develop a strategy as a matter of urgency to define creative art therapies and recommend how service providers in the Health Service Executive can employ professionals in this field. I have had a huge reaction to this report from people on the ground who are dealing with individuals with mental illness.

Practitioners are saying creative therapy does work. It is therefore time we defined it, put it on the professional payscale and rolled it out around the country. If it were defined and recognised professionally, there would not be a haemorrhaging of graduates from the University of Limerick to the North and other destinations across the world. They would be able to remain in our system. Why are they not considered in the same way as occupational therapists, speech and language therapists and physiotherapists? They are as important.

Our problem in Ireland is that, owing to the pressures success has exerted on our lives, we have great difficulty in making time for recreation and for maintaining our mental health. People are like swans in that they are paddling like hell underneath the water while maintaining a calm image above the surface. They are trying to present a normal image while trying to cope with the many pressures in their lives. We must focus in these years on reacting to the reality of life and this means putting mental health services centre-stage rather than regarding them as the Cinderella of the health service.

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