Ivana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Senator MacSharry spoke about the launch yesterday of Fianna Fáil's document on suicide prevention. I commend Senator MacSharry and his colleagues on all their research and other work over seven months to put it together. I join the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, in welcoming the document warmly. Members on both sides of the House have commended it, expressed their support for it and called for it to be debated. As Senator MacSharry said, it is important that we take a cross-party approach to this issue. Everybody is united in seeking to find practical ways of implementing a structural policy of suicide prevention. The House had a debate on the matter with the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, on 12 January 2012 but we could usefully have another debate more than a year on. We can certainly ask the Minister of State to come in for such a debate. As I have said, she has warmly welcomed the document.

As Senator MacSharry knows, the Government is strongly committed to suicide prevention strategies.

The Minister of State with responsibility for primary care, Deputy Alex White, will be bringing preventive proposals to Government shortly on alcohol abuse, which as the Senator noted, is another part of the issue. The Minister of State with responsibility for disability, equality and mental health launched guidance on mental health and suicide prevention for post-primary schools on 31 January 2013. The commitment in the programme for Government of an allocation of ¤35 million for 2012 and 2013 was primarily to strengthen community mental health teams in adult and children's mental health services so there is an ongoing commitment to further developing suicide prevention initiatives. It would be a very good idea to debate the Government's actions and commitments alongside the proposals in Senator MacSharry's document, so I will pass that on to the Leader. I know the Minister of State with responsibility for disability, equality and mental health is a very regular visitor to this House and I am sure she would be amenable to coming in to debate that issue.

Senator Clune welcomed the Fianna Fáil document and the decision by the finance Ministers at EU level to ask the troika to come forward with proposals for the best possible options for both Ireland and Portugal for the EFSF and EFSM loans. Like Senator Clune, I very much welcome this. This arose out of the Eurogroup meeting yesterday and the ECOFIN meeting today which discussed the question of whether EU finance Ministers would ask the troika to consider this adjustment. It is very important that this agreement to ask the troika has been made. No final agreement was reached today but there were positive comments from Commissioner Rehn and the chair of the Eurogroup, Dutch finance Minister, Mr. Jeroen Dijsselbloem, on the issue last night so the Government is making progress on this issue. Like Senator Clune, I very much welcome that.

Senator Clune also raised the issue of the vacancies in IT jobs and made the point that this is not just an issue for Ireland, although we have about 5,000 vacancies in IT jobs despite unemployment levels, but an issue across the EU where there is clearly a skills gap in the IT sector. The Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation has announced his intention to tackle this and make Ireland particularly strong in IT skills. There are a number of key measures in the recently launched Action Plan for Jobs 2013, which a number of us welcomed in this House, aimed at improving Ireland's record and strengthening our reputation for ICT skills. Since the Government took office, there has been an increase of over 10,000 jobs in the ICT sector so it is a key sector for growth that has been targeted in the Government's plan for jobs and growth. Like Senator Clune, I welcome the announcement of the creation of 150 new jobs by FireEye in Cork. We could have a debate with the Minister about that. I know colleagues will be raising it with the Minister for Education and Skills in the debate on Thursday on the Education and Training Boards Bill.

Senator Barrett spoke about the announcement in The University Timesabout the Church of Ireland College of Education. I am a regular reader of that excellent publication from Trinity College. Senator Norris expressed a view on the naming of that with which I would concur.