Fidelma Healy Eames (Fine Gael)

There are many other factors. That is how complex it is. It is to do with societal change, societal pressure, etc.

I wish to condemn the remarks of Mr. Brian Mooney in that regard. I really admire the man on other fronts. He is an eminent speaker and commentator in The Irish Times, but this is not professional. It is not fitting for this man because he is too good to be using that type of language and it is not the way to deal with it.

In this regard, I would ask the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, to ask the Minister, Deputy Quinn to issue a directive to all second level schools to ensure that the suicide prevention module in SPHE is taught to all students. Social, personal and health education, SPHE, is mandatory up to junior certificate, but I have been speaking to principals in second level schools in the past few days arising from these inflammatory comments and they stated that they have the wherewithal within subjects such as religion and SPHE to teach a module on suicide prevention. That would be a healthy move. The time to teach is when children are healthy, not when they are at risk. When they are at risk, one never knows what works. Everybody should be getting this information, and in each school year. I taught religion in New York state for a number of years very early in my career and suicide prevention was one of my topics. I also taught history. I started the day sometimes with religion and ended, depending on where it was timetabled, with history, and the kids were still coming to me during history to talk about suicide. This should not be the job only of a career guidance teacher. Mental health and positive well-being is so important that it should be the business of all teachers. The Minister, Deputy Quinn, can give a lead role here by issuing that directive to all schools.

I support what Senator Zappone stated as well. It must be part of the caring ethos of all schools and, to give schools their due, it largely is. Many schools have a care team, with year heads and tutors. Some schools, for example, have a letter box whereby a person can anonymously drop in the name of someone about whom he or she is concerned. These are positive measures. In many schools, there is also a pastoral care team.

It is not fitting for those comments to be made by the former president of the guidance counsellors' association. They are not fair and they are not accurate. I condemn them but I also ask the Minister of State to ask the Minister, Deputy Quinn, to intervene positively stating that this should be the business of all teachers and that the issue of suicide prevention must be core curriculum as well.

I would make a few other remarks. Senator Zappone is correct that homophobia has caused some young people to have suicidal tendencies. As part of an early school leaving study last year, we interviewed young members of the lesbian, gay and bisexual community on this issue and they told us that they had contemplated suicide as a result of homophobia being perpetrated in schools. Therefore, it is important that those guidelines are implemented.

My third point concerns the courts. Several years ago a young man who had bipolar disorder committed suicide in a neighbourhood close to where I grew up. He had committed an offence and was brought before the judge but his medical records were not allowed to be presented in court. His family were adamant that they should have been taken into consideration because they believed they would have persuaded the judge to commit him to a psychiatric ward. He had stopped taking his medication. He committed suicide that night. I wrote to the then Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Michael McDowell, but he responded that he would not take those comments into account. This is an example of a direct causal link. As I do not know the current position I would be grateful if the Minister of State could indicate whether medical records are now being taken into account by the courts, particularly where psychiatric illnesses are involved.

My final point pertains to rural isolation. The drink driving limits have reduced the number of accidents on our roads, which is brilliant, but they also contribute to the problem of rural isolation among older men living alone. I have asked myself how I could support the non-implementation of drink driving limits. However, the statistics indicate that most drink driving related accidents involve younger men. Should we introduce different limits for older people based on these statistics? We could set the limits according to age brackets of, for example, ten or 15 years. We do not know for certain about causal factors but we should not contribute to concerns that can cause deaths in other ways.

I would be delighted if the Minister of State was able to follow up on the four issues I raised, namely, schools, courts, homophobic guidelines and rural isolation. It is a big job.