The need for 24/7 crisis community-based mental health services was raised with the Mental Health Minister Helen McEntee yesterday when she was handed a petition signed by 12,000 people demanding better services.

Mental Health Minister Helen McEntee insists the Government is “100% committed” to fully resourcing the sector after concerns were raised over decade-old plans not being implemented.

The suicide rate of people aged under 25 is “of significant concern”, according to the National Office for Suicide Prevention.

Officials have been poring over files and documents placed in a secret storage unit by the former Console chief executive Paul Kelly after a court order allowed David Hall, interim CEO at the charity, to break the lock and seize them.

The campaign, which aims to try to prevent future tragedies, may be dashed as a government-appointed expert group advise against a change in the law in relation to family involvement and the doctor-patient relationship, writes Eoin English

The HSE will reissue medical cards sent to Magdalene survivors after complaints they identified the women as having been in a laundry.

Five years of economic recession and austerity in Ireland have had a dramatic negative impact on the male suicide rate and the self-harm rate among men and women, a study has found.

The Psychiatric Nurses Association has described as “unique” the action of nurses who voted against transferring to a new €15m acute psychiatric unit despite three in five being offered an incentive to do so.

The Psychiatric Nurses Association is to ballot members on revised staffing proposals designed to end a row that has delayed the opening of a €15m psychiatric unit at Cork University Hospital (CUH).

The mother of a severely underweight teenager has said she urgently needs to be transferred to a specialist facility in London to help her survive.

A modern legislative framework can lead to improved mental health services and hopefully, a significant cultural shift, Mental Health Minister Kathleen Lynch writes

The Government is to fast-track legislation ending the practice of administering electric shock therapy to mental health patients even if that patient has capacity and refuses the treatment.

If there was one over-riding message that HSE honchos wanted media to take from a tour of the new acute psychiatric unit at Cork University Hospital on January 20, it was that all was well.

“If you were ever in GF, you’d appreciate how fantastic this new unit is.”

Public Expenditure Minister Brendan Howlin says he is backing John McNulty - despite the recent 'cronyism' controversy.

A €14.7m grant from the foundation set up by Irish-American philanthropist Chuck Feeney will help the increasing numbers of people suffering from dementia in Ireland.

More desperate people are reaching out for help in the early hours, a report being published today will reveal.

Just 4% of the 477 mental health staff promised in 2013 had been recruited by the end of September according to Mental Health Reform (MHR), prompting them to question if next year’s budget allocation will translate into staff on the ground.

Thousands of Irish children as young as 11 are suffering mental health problems that without proper help could lead to life-long illness, research shows.

A minister has backed a potential in-depth study into suicide among clerical sex abuse survivors — and the likely impact on future generations.

Suicide and self-harm rates have fallen but are still significantly higher than before the recession began.

A plan to tackle suicide in a part of the country with the highest rate of people taking their own lives has been launched.

More than 160 seriously ill patients are being forced to wait over six months for vital brain surgery — at a time when Ireland is hosting a major conference on how to prioritise the service.

One-in-six calls to the Samaritans are recession-related, it has emerged.

The HSE has again failed to answer questions on its report into a murder-suicide involving a father and two young girls — which said there were no shortcomings in the care it provided.

The key post of director at the National Office for Suicide Prevention remains unfilled as figures show male suicide has rocketed by almost 140% in the past 30 years.

As men in Cork have the country’s highest rates of self-harming, a year-long course teaching coping skills is to be offered around the city and county.

A year-long course teaching coping skills is to be offered around Cork city and county, where men have the country’s highest rates of self-harming.

One in five 12- to 25-year-olds have engaged in self-harm, one in 14 have attempted suicide, and a third who seek formal state help feel it is very difficult to find, according to new data.

LIFTING the recruitment embargo in the mental health services is futile unless the HSE is given a budget to employ frontline staff, it has been warned.

A VICTORIAN-ERA psychiatric hospital in Co Kerry, which has been blacklisted by inspectors’ reports for years, will finally close in 2014.

Letters of protest have been handed into the Dáil today calling on the Government to put children's mental health at the top of their agenda.

MENTAL Health Minister John Moloney has questioned whether there is a media “conspiracy” behind the lack of coverage granted to a major campaign aimed at de-stigmatising mental illness.

THE Irish Psychiatric Association (IPA) has called on the Government to clarify whether the €43 million announced in yesterday’s budget for investment in mental health projects includes money already raised through the sale of psychiatric institutions.

A psychiatric patient was charged with two counts of murder today following the overnight stabbings of two other patients at an Australian hospital.