Camillus Glynn (Fianna Fail)

I strongly support Senator Mary White's comments on suicide. In the last Seanad I was a member of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health and Children and part of a sub-committee which compiled a report on the high incidence of suicide in Irish society. It is time we debated that report and there is no point in brushing suicide under the carpet; it is a fact of life.

As a member of the male sex and given that the incidence of suicide among young males is approximately seven times that in young females, I know young men are particularly at risk. This is primarily because young women will go home and speak to Mam or Dad or to a friend, but Johnny or Pat do not do so and bottle it up instead. Hence, they are prone to adverse consequences.

At some stage we will invite the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy John Gormley, to the House. My colleague and I have made such a request with regard to how we carry out elections and the electoral register. There is also a practice in this country, both in public and private car parks, of people parking in disabled persons' parking spaces when they are not entitled to. I see it on a daily basis and it is the lowest form of motoring practice. There is no doubt that the offence should carry penalty points.

It might be more pertinent to the Minister for Transport, Deputy Noel Dempsey, but we must impose very serious sanctions against those people who have the use of their limbs but who deliberately take up a parking space designated for disabled people just because they are too lazy to look for another space. I repeat that it is the lowest form of motoring practice and it must be stamped out.