This week Leo Varadkar will be proposing a Public Health Alcohol Bill which will set minimum pricing of alcohol products.

The body representing the country’s psychiatrists has described spending on mental health as “scandalously low”.

The number of drug users who have died by hanging has more than doubled over the last nine years, official figures show.

Mental health services in Galway/Roscommon are operating under a 30-year-old national strategy and in some cases are akin to "mini-institutions".

A mother whose husband killed their two children before ending his own life says she lives her life for her dead daughters.

ENDA Kenny wasn’t the only one who delivered a good speech last week. Joining in the apologies to the Magdalene survivors on Tuesday, Eamon Gilmore had much to say about the past.

More than a quarter of all new child and adolescent referrals for mental health treatment in the past year have been due to self-harm or suicidal thoughts.

With great respect for Una Butler, I read the articles in the Irish Examiner (November 1) in which she revealed details of the heartbreaking experience of her husband who took the lives of her children and who subsequently ended his own life.

THE HSE has agreed “in principle” to relinquish ownership of houses in which people with mental health problems live to local authorities, under a housing strategy published today.

A LACK of out-of-hours services means that some young people who might simply need a social worker are ending up in adult psychiatric units, a report has found.

IT is impossible to implement the Government’s plan to reform mental health services without more staff and further investment, the HSE’s mental health boss has admitted.

A VIOLENT and disturbed mental health patient has been under 24-hour guard at Ennis General Hospital at a cost of €1,000 a day for more than two years.

IN his column on the Department of Health and Children (July 6), Fergus Finlay knocks great fun out of questioning the role and function of the department and its ministers.

ABOUT 300 people with intellectual disabilities are still languishing in psychiatric hospitals despite Government commitments to move them into community care.

A SITE in the Midlands is among those being considered as the location for the new Central Mental Hospital, the Minister for Mental Health John Moloney said yesterday.

THE Health Service Executive has been severely rebuked by Amnesty International Ireland for failing to keep track on spending in mental health.

IT is an unfortunate but entirely illustrative irony that Eating Disorders Awareness Week began yesterday, just as half the world sat up agog at the chemically and surgically modified waif-women who high-heeled it up the red carpet to the Oscars ceremony at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angles or at London Fashion Week.

Nobody should be surprised that the Government has been breaking its promises.

CHILD welfare groups have hailed a Health Service Executive review of services as a vindication of their pleas for urgent extra funding for the sector.

The Irish Psychiatric Association (IPA) and the Irish Mental Health Coalition (IMHC) issued what amounted to damning progress reports yesterday to mark the second anniversary of the publication of A Vision for Change, the Government’s framework document for mental health.

RECENT high-profile suicide associated killings need to be viewed in the context of the country’s poor record on mental health, according to the Irish Association of Suicidology.

THE junior health minister with responsibility for mental health has announced plans to shut down a mental health facility which has been closed for the past five years.