‘Mental health fund cuts disgust me, minister’- Student pens moving letter to Health Minister

A secondary school student left devastated by two suicides in her locality within a week has written to the Minister for Health to express her “disgust” at cuts to mental health funding.

In a moving and poignant open letter to the minister, Sophie Geaney, a sixth-year pupil from Cork, contrasts the frenetic campaign on water charges with the lack of attention given to the country’s appalling suicide rates.

Ireland’s youth suicide rate is the highest in Europe and the leading cause of death of young people here.