Time to be honest on the causes of suicide

Despite the attention focussed on the unnecessary death of Savita Halappanavar by coroner Dr Ciaran MacLoughlin’s revealing Galway inquest, the Ireland portrayed at South Kerry coroner Terence Casey’s quarterly court this week, where five out of six deaths considered were suicides, is a deeply disturbing and dysfunctional place.

If we imagine ourselves a decent people we must work much harder to change society because we can no longer pretend that its failings and unfairness do not play a large part in these terrible events. What is it in our culture, our interactions or evasions, that makes such a final decision seem the only option available to so many young people?

We must work too to discredit the almost congratulatory response to suicide, especially by young people, on social media. A person is never “in a better place” after suicide but that assertion is regularly made. It is certain that bereft relatives do not agree.