TDs back Elber’s call for garda training to deal with suicide

Two joint Oireachtas committees have backed a young widow’s campaign to secure special training for gardaí to deal with suicide.

Elber Twomey, 38, who lost her family in a UK crash caused by a suicidal taxi driver, said she was “delighted” that both the transport and communications committee, and the justice, defence, and equality committee have agreed to lobby garda management on her behalf.

“It’s another important milestone in my campaign,” she said last night.

Elber, from north Cork, lost her 16-month-old son Oisín and her unborn baby girl, Elber Marie, in a head-on collision in Devon on July 6, 2012, after Polish taxi driver, Marek Wojciechowski, 26, deliberately rammed their VW Golf as they were driving to catch a ferry home after a holiday in Britain.

Elber’s husband, Con, 38, suffered devastating injuries and died in Cork University Hospital almost 10 months later.

Police in Britain have changed their operating procedures for dealing with the pursuit of suicidal drivers. Elber has now dedicated her life to ensuring that gardaí are specially trained to deal with suicidal drivers and with people who are known or suspected to have suicidal ideation, to ensure that no other family suffers the same devastating loss.

She met Transport Minister Leo Varadkar, she wrote to former justice minister Alan Shatter before his resignation, and addressed the Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis in a bid to build support for her campaign.

With the help of TDs Patrick O’Donovan, David Stanton, and John O’Mahony, she lobbied the two Oireachtas committees. And last night, she said the defence committee wrote to her saying its members “fully support” her campaign and will forward her correspondence to Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald, and the Garda commissioner, requesting that they give her proposal “urgent consideration”. The transport committee will also write to Garda management “expressing strong support” for the campaign.

Rank-and-file gardaí as well as the Road Safety Authority (RSA) have also agreed to examine her proposals.

Meanwhile, Elber is finalising arrangements for a special memorial weekend to honour her late husband and children.

The three-day Twomey Family Rem-orial Weekend of sport and fun will take place in Newmarket and Meelin in North Cork from June 6 to 8.

Elber hopes the entire weekend will raise up to €50,000 which will be split between the British hospitals which cared for her and her family in the immediate aftermath of the crash, and CUH, which cared for Con in the months before his death, and suicide prevention charities including Suicide Aware Cork, Inspire Ireland, 3Ts and Pieta House.

* twomeyfamilyremorial.com