Suicide prevention - A cause worthy of investment

THE impact suicide can have, especially on the parents and extended family of a young person who commits suicide, can hardly be imagined.

It must be one of the most harrowing, challenging and destructive catalysts for doubt and endless questioning. The “what ifs” keep bereft parents and siblings awake, tossing and turning in bed at night.

It provokes, or it least it must be imagined that it provokes, life-long angst and heartbreak. It may be the ache that time does not assuage.

In those circumstances, it is natural that those who have been so hurt might try and establish services that will help others by trying to prevent suicide, or at least cut the suicide rate.

Such services, and because of our inordinately high suicide rate there are a great number of them around the country, can offer life-saving interventions.

One, the Clare-based William Winder Rainbow Foundation, established by Mark and Caroline Winder after the 2012 death of their 15-year-old son William to offer counselling services to vulnerable young people, has been forced to cut counselling hours by 50% because of a lack of funds.

The foundation offers counselling without charging clients and does not receive any state funding. It is hard not to think that money spent on these services is money well spent and even if it averts just one tragedy it is justified.