Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I do not suppose there is a community that is not affected by suicide. In my area there were several clusters of young people who lost their lives through suicide. One parent came to me, and probably to every other public representative in the area, because she was looking for it not to happen to anyone else, if that was possible. She was still very raw. She had gone through the strategy documents and referred particularly to Connecting for Life. I had erroneously thought that the group most at risk of suicide were middle-aged men but she showed me the graph on page 3 of the document which showed the level of suicide among 15 to 19 year olds. We are very much out of kilter with many of our European counterparts. Greece and Spain are the two lowest on that scale which shows that disadvantage is not the reason for suicide.

This parent pointed to a section on page 116 of the document which refers to “SPHE, CSPE and PE, in Junior Cycle”. At senior cycle, however, the word “encourage” is used. That is the area that worries her because she said there is no in-service or specific teacher training for teachers who may be engaged with young people when something could be done. She thinks this should be mandatory rather than encouraged. She noted that the HSE has been at pains to point out how teen pregnancies have been reducing because of interventions. This is something, she said, that is at least as serious if not more so but there is no mandatory provision or discussion at that level. Her point was that we avoid talking about it. This is a cohort of people who have neither the emotional maturity nor the language to talk about it. Unless we provide it in a space where we are not dealing with a crisis we will not be intervening in a meaningful way. I heard this from somebody who had spent day and night thinking about this for many months before she spoke with me.

She is seeking to identify a contribution she can make in order to help her understand what happened and to address the problem itself at the same time.

In terms of voluntary and involuntary admissions, I would like the admissions policy to be specified when people present at accident and emergency departments because that has given rise to difficulties in a number of instances about which I will speak to the Minister separately.

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