Marcella Corcoran Kennedy (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this important issue. It is appropriate that Parliament should discuss an issue which would have been swept under the carpet not many years ago. In former times the outcome for unfortunate patients could be appalling. Among other things, they could be locked up in an institution or at home or, at best, branded as odd and avoided not only by neighbours and friends but also by family members.

Thankfully we now have become a more informed society and accept that we will all experience some form of poor mental health at some stage in our lives. Informing ourselves and our children of the signs and symptoms of depression and the fact that help is available is crucial to dealing with the issue. Nowadays, we can access mental health services in many settings, and the old taboos about depression are being slowly broken down.

I would like to focus my remarks this evening on youth suicide. As a young child and teenager living near a river, I became aware of suicide as two adults took their own lives in different years. I must admit that suicide was not something that I thought a lot about since then, but in recent years the increase in suicide in Offaly, especially among our youths, has brought the issue into sharp focus. It primarily occurs among young men, but young women too now appear to be resorting to death by suicide. What are the reasons for this drastic step? It is a challenge for society to deal with this. There must be a growing feeling of hopelessness which is leading to increasing levels of alcohol and drug abuse, anti-social behaviour, homelessness, mental health problems and suicide.

There are now many organisations out there which support young people in particular. Headstrong, SpunOut and other organisations are doing exemplary work in attempting to support youth mental health by enabling them to access systems and supports where needed. The Jigsaw programme was designed by Headstrong and it is a wonderful programme that works on capacity building and in partnership with communities to support young people's positive mental health. Communities from all over Ireland are availing of this wonderful project, and I am delighted that Offaly has been included in an expansion announced recently by the HSE. We must be as proactive as possible in developing and supporting better services to support our young people.

Seventy five per cent of mental health difficulties emerge before the age of 24. It is a long time since I was 24, but I can remember the feelings of being somebody of that age trying to find herself. This is a critical period in a person's development and if we can identify issues as they emerge, then if we intervene at an early stage, we can prevent people from suffering a lifetime of pain.

The extension of the Jigsaw service means that young people will get help earlier and prevent unnecessary potentially very serious problems for them in their day to day lives. It is a challenging subject and we need to innovate and come forward with novel and effective solutions. The existing Jigsaw projects demonstrate that it is possible to reduce the stigma associated with mental health, remove barriers and design a service that works for young people by listening carefully to their ideas and react to their feedback. This is the type of service that should be rolled out across the country.

I would like to refer to an excellent project carried out recently in Offaly to address mental health. It was called "Let's talk about mental health" and it was carried on in collaboration between the HSE, the county council and the community forum. There was a week of events across the county, in libraries and community halls, in which mental health issues were discussed. It culminated in a wonderful family celebration on the final day, which was a great end to what was a difficult week when people talked about their experiences. It should be experienced in other counties across the country. I am sure an evaluation of the impact of that week will be carried out, and it should be referred to in future.

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