Pat Deering (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)

Since this is my first opportunity to speak in this Chamber, I thank the people of Carlow-Kilkenny, particularly the people of Carlow, for entrusting their confidence in me to represent them in the 31st Dáil. I thank my family, my party and my party workers for their help and support during the recent election campaign.

Like every other speaker, I am delighted to get the opportunity to make a few brief points in this important debate. Suicide affects every town and village in this country. Ironically, since this debate started three to four weeks ago, in my county four young people under the age of 25 have taken their own life. Like previous speakers, I have found going to those funerals very difficult. Suicide is an area that we need to tackle immediately.

A number of years ago, road safety was a big issue. I do not mean to downgrade that important issue, but it was a national emergency over the past five or ten years and we tackled it strongly. We need to go down the same road now to tackle this important issue.

There are three main categories of which we all know. There are young males, males in the 30 to 45 age bracket and then there are females, who are more affected than anybody else. Two main areas should be looked at and bearing in mind the old adage that prevention is better than cure, education is the first step we should take. Young males in the 15 to 20 age bracket are vulnerable. Once somebody in that particular age bracket takes his or her own life, friends in the same age group might think they may be better off going down the same road. We need to tackle this and ensure they are more aware of the better services that are available and that better options exist than taking one's life. We need to have a structure in place at secondary school level, perhaps during transition year, to ensure they are more knowledgeable and not as vulnerable.

Media campaigns are very important and have been very effective in road safety. We spent a great deal of money on media campaigns in recent years and it was money well spent. We need to go down this road with regard to suicide prevention to ensure we are successful. While suicide will never become a thing of the past, the current figures are frightening. We need to bring on board people who are looked up to by young people, such as sporting heroes and TV personalities, to make young people aware of the options that exist and the fact that taking one's life is not the way to go.

Funding is also very important and we need to ring-fence a certain amount of money every year to try to reduce the figures. In the past, we set targets for road safety and we should go down the same road for this.

I thank my colleague, Deputy Neville, for his work over the years, for ensuring we have had this debate, and for ensuring this issue has come to the forefront rather than being kept in the dark as it was in the past. As we know, suicide was something about which people did not want to speak but because of Deputy Neville's work, we are having a national debate on it. It is something about which we should speak more openly. I wish the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, well in her new role. I know she takes it very seriously and I wish her every success.

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