John Minihan (Progressive Democrats)

I welcome the Minister of State and his officials to the House. It is with a certain amount of trepidation that I enter this debate in the House this afternoon. It is not that I do not welcome the contributions of the Members. Rather, I am concerned about two aspects.

First, I am mindful of an article published over the weekend in the national press that was entitled "Keep Suicide out of Murky Politics". While I do not accept the implications of the word "murky", elements of the piece did strike a chord. The article states that parties are out of order when they try to make suicide a political issue. It is described as an astute populist tactic. Specific reference was made to a recent Fine Gael campaign. However, we must ensure that, despite our best intentions, those affected by suicide do not equate our actions as merely astute populist tactics.