School massacre - Services challenged

As America, one more time, pays a very heavy price for its trenchant belief in the right of citizens to own military-grade firearms, the rest of the world looks on with sadness and amazement.

Sadness that such carnage should be visited on a town so like so many others around the world, and amazement that so many Americans still demand the right to own firearms far beyond anything needed for hunting. Though access to such lethal firepower is not an issue for us — thankfully — the core issue is.

The killer, Adam Lanza, was mentally unstable, and if he had the treatment he needed, then we might never have heard of Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

Are we confident that our services are efficient enough to identify and help an Irish Adam Lanza?