President issues plea to halt suicide rate
Rising suicide rates among Irish teenagers can be halted if health experts and psychologists join forces to lift the “taboos and terror”, Mary McAleese declared today.
As agencies grappling with an issue shrouded by stigma gathered at Áras an Uachtaráin to devise a new priority action, the President also stressed the vulnerability of older men.
She urged agencies and victims’ families to pit their wits in a bid to strengthen available support for those at risk.
Mrs McAleese said: “For the young person walking around Ireland somewhere with a great big bit of concrete in his stomach who can’t face tomorrow, maybe just maybe he would know all this is, is a bad patch.
“We need to be able to reach him to take that cement block and say it’s easier carried with company.”
With 444 suicides recorded in Ireland last year the authorities have been attempting to cope with the problem that has placed the state among Europe’s blackspots.
Although ranking towards the lower end of overall cases among EU member countries, Ireland has one of the highest instances of 15 to 24-year-olds taking their own lives.
The Government is expected to announce a special suicide prevention strategy later this year.
After being inaugurated for a second term in November President McAleese pledged to open up her office to people and groups struggling to cope with the challenges of modern life.
And as part of that commitment she hosted a forum at Áras an Uachtaráin for those groups working across the island on suicide intervention and prevention.
Even though the vulnerability of teenage youths has caused alarm, the President also spoke out about the dangers facing men in retirement.
“I see it a lot,” she said.
“I walk through the door of a senior citizen’s home and 95% of those in attendance will be female. I know every time I visit in that area, whether it’s a parish or rural area there are elderly men and they are sitting in their homes and they are miserable and depressed. They are not going to the doctors and they could be the next suicide statistics.”
President McAleese told the organisations gathered that they had a unity of purpose which must be developed into a common effort.
She added: “We are moving beyond the early days of shifting the veil of taboo into strategy, into questions rooted in suicide, rooted in research and rooted in the widest number of jigsaw pieces we can put on the table.”
