Paul Lawless (Mayo, Aontú)

I very much welcome the opportunity to speak on this issue. The issue of mental health and suicide is devastating. It affects many families and communities across Ireland. I will speak on a couple of specific issues. The first is that of farmer mental health. This has been very topical in my own constituency in recent days. The last weeks of September were particularly wet and what was essentially a slurry ban was introduced on 1 October. That had huge consequences for farmers. All of the regulations and the challenges associated with them are driving farmers' mental health into the ground. The idea that spreading slurry this week, when it is dry, is worse for the environment than spreading it last week during torrential rain when we saw some of the wettest weeks on record makes no sense and caused great difficulties for farmers. According to Teagasc, 23% of farmers are at risk of suicide. In the same survey, over 55% of farmers reported depression. That is a shocking statistic. When I think back to my own grandfather, who farmed the land with such joy, and remember those days as a child, I think it was a much more enjoyable profession in those days when farmers could concentrate on the job of farming. The Minister of State needs to work with the Department of agriculture to ensure that all of these guidelines work with farmers.

As a TD, I enjoy nothing more than knocking on doors and speaking to people, including elderly people and young people. Many elderly people want nothing more than to chat. Many feel very isolated in their communities. I believe Covid changed everything, particularly for senior citizens. Across the years of the pandemic, the message was that we should isolate from one another and that contact was extremely damaging.

People stopped visiting each other and going to Mass, the pub and matches. Could I have the attention of the Minister of State, please? Many among the cohort in question have continued to live as they did during Covid. The Minister of State now has a big job of work in her Ministry to promote the idea that isolation is damaging. We really need to get that message across. I spoke to a social-dancing teacher recently who identified some of the issues in this area. She said it was so sad that the people she knew so well, who used to go to social-dancing lessons and dances, are still isolating and have never returned following the Covid pandemic. It is important that we get the message out that we need to reverse this trend. It has been on repeat for so many years.

I want to raise a very concerning issue, namely, suicide contagion or cluster suicide. In my constituency recently, a community and town experienced a number of suicides. I reached out to the HSE for help and to alert it to the great difficulty the town, community, friend groups and families were experiencing, and I was shocked by the response. I spent countless hours on phone calls and emails. I had expected that there would be some protocol for a rapid response whereby teams of professionals, including psychologists, would go into the community, identify the friend groups and reach out with supports. Instead, I was asked to share a poster on social media and put it up around the town. Many of the organisations and resources on the poster - including Samaritans Ireland, Pieta House, Childline, SpunOut and www.yourmentalhealth.ie- are very positive, but if the poster is the response to suicide contagion in a community, it is simply inadequate. Several weeks after the contagion, we eventually managed to deliver a community prevention meeting, but meanwhile in the community the friend groups of the individuals concerned were meeting late at night in cars outside filling stations. These were young people of 18, 19 and 20. They were children in many cases. There was no support. Nobody reached out and nobody identified the people as potentially needing supports, signposting and therapy. The response, I believe, was entirely inadequate. Quite frankly, I was frustrated by the lack of proactivity and willingness to intervene and reach out to the community to indicate the supports. A meeting, forum or small group-support mechanism could have been set up in the local community centre, GAA club or elsewhere to help the young people and signpost them to further supports. Instead, there was no real action – let us be honest. I campaigned and fought and eventually we established a community support meeting. However, if the response is just to put up a poster with telephone numbers, it is totally inadequate.

I believe there is a model to follow, namely the one in secondary schools, whereby NEPS staff go into a school, assist students and teachers, signpost supports and try to identify individuals in need of help. However, what happened in the community in question was that the young people most affected had to support each other in cars late at night outside filling stations. I ask the Minister of State to meet me to discuss the matter and determine how we can develop a framework or rapid crisis response team that can go into a community and reach out proactively, not simply throw out a few numbers and ask people to reach out for help. Those most in need of help are often the least likely to pick up the phone but they may be willing to engage if the hand of friendship is extended and there is a proactive approach. I reached out in the hope and expectation that this would happen but it did not. Perhaps as a new TD I was naïve. What happened was inadequate. I would like the Minister of State to work with me and to follow up with me on this.

I want to speak briefly about the CSO data. We need to speak about the difficulties, the tragedy that is suicide and the devastating impact it has. The CSO data on suicide are about four years behind. According to the CSO website, the most recent suicide data are from 2021. I understand there are delays with coroners’ reports and so on, but the delay in this area is a real difficulty. We should be considering the surveying of GPs, funeral directors, parish priests and so on to try to get a handle on the situation.

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