Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)

The last time this issue was discussed in the House, I received a telephone call from a friend whose sister-in-law of 20 years of age had taken her own life. As one does, I turned up at the church as did large numbers. I do not know how many funerals I have attended of people who have gone down this road. Everybody was a bit stunned because this girl was full of life. People talked about how lovely the person was and that they did not see the signs or the triggers. Families ask what if they had done something else, what if they had seen the signs and so on. We do not have any answers for them, or certainly I do not.

I am conscious that there are children in the Visitors Gallery. At some stage in their lives, someone belonging to them or close to them will go down this path. The responsibility we have as legislators and public representatives is to come up with solutions. Deputy Mick Wallace referred to the divergence of opinion on how to address this. I remember a former Member of this House who had the attitude that people who commited suicide were "selfish Bs". That is a human reaction, but any of the people I knew who went down that path were not summed up by that description. It did not sum up their lives. While it is a human reaction, the description does not help. It does not help their families and does not turn people away from following that path. That attitude needs to be consigned to the past.

Prevention is the key. People talk about what we can do and there is a great deal we can do. If someone comes to see us, help is available. In many cases, people do not know how to access help from organisations such as Teen-line, of which I am a patron. I knew Darren Bolger who took that path. I know his family well and the great work Maureen Bolger has done as an advocate for change. She works with schools and talks to young people. I refer also to Samaritans, the volunteer services, Pieta House and the national suicide helpline. It is a matter of supporting these services but also of changing attitudes in society. If someone in a family goes down this path, it is not a dirty secret. People need to talk about this. The profile is of young men of a certain age and we must consider what we can do.

I will give a few examples to show how the system fails. Last year a young lad from a neighbouring constituency took part in a play as part of a suicide awareness programme. Having taken part in it, one would have expected him to realise the pain and suffering his family, friends and colleagues would go through, but he ended up taking that path. On his first anniversary another kid from the same school took that path. Support is available in that school. I asked one of his schoolmates how he felt and how he was affected. He told me support was available but that if they wanted counselling, they slipped a note under the door of the school principal. Then they were called out of class. If one is not a hard chaw - many of these kids are not - they will be asked why they were called out and the principal wanted to see them. Young men and boys do not want people to know that they need counselling or help. The system in place in that school does not work.

Friends of mine from a local school came to see me. The mother had been sorting socks and jocks and came across a note written by a young lad of seven years of age. It suggested he was being bullied in school and was thinking of committing suicide. The family had been to the school on three occasions to deal with the matter. They asked me, as a public representative, what I would recommend. I recommended contacting the school board. In the end, they moved the kid out of the school and moved out of the area. Thankfully, he is a survivor and has not gone down that path.

Another case affected me greatly. Before I was elected for the first time, a colleague of mine took the path of suicide. His wife rang me at 7 a.m. to ask me if he had arrived at my house. I told her I would turn on the lights and draw the curtains in order that he might come in. I went over to their house and a young man was lying in the field. I wanted to identify the body because I knew it was him. However, given that he had shot himself, the Garda Síochána was interested in how he had access to a weapon. No one knew. He had previously tried to throw himself under a bus. He had taken alcohol and tablets and locked himself in a toilet in one of the local shops. He had been thrown out and then tried to throw himself under a bus. He ended up in the accident and emergency unit in the local hospital before being released and sent to his GP who gave him a prescription for tablets. Ironically, he was the kind of guy who would not take a tablet if his life depended on it. My point is that the system did not work in this case and many others.

What does a family do when they are concerned about a loved one who may be self-harming or considering self-harm? One cannot section an individual in every case. It is a matter of telling the person concerned that help is available, that he or she is loved and that there is an alternative. I have talked to survivors, people who had decided to go down that path but were saved or changed their mind.

As legislators, there is much we can do and some of it concerns accident and emergency units. One volunteer was involved in counselling and came across a young girl of 15 years who talked about taking her own life. The volunteer talked to her for hours on the telephone and asked her to come into the office. As there was no adult at home, she was brought to the accident and emergency unit. Having built up a relationship with the girl, the volunteer who acted as advocate could not remain with the girl because there was no link. The accident and emergency unit was bedlam at a time, but the girl had been brought in on her own. I raised this point with Mr. Geoff Day. If there was a chill room as part of the hospital system, an advocate could remain with the person concerned. There is a room for bereaved family members, but that is not normally situated beside the accident and emergency unit. If it was located in a secure part of the hospital, it could be used. Most hospitals have such rooms, but there is a need for the system to realise that when people are vulnerable, they need to sit outside the madness of the accident and emergency unit. We all know such stories.

We must set targets. Other speakers referred to the number of deaths on the roads and the amount of money spent in tackling that problem. There is no urgency in tackling this issue. We must set targets to reduce the figures. Opinion-makers in society must speak out and tell people help and support services are available. We must also train people to identify triggers. They need to be trained to identify those people showing signs of going down that road. We must support all the different groups working in this area. I do not believe we need legislative change, rather we need to change attitudes in Irish society, including the attitude that young men should not cry.

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