Mental healthcare - Government must act on suicide crisis

IT is a sad measure of this Government’s failure to tackle Ireland’s appalling suicide crisis that voluntary support groups should feel compelled to join forces to launch a national 24-hour helpline.

So frustrated have they become at the State’s delay in addressing this chronic social problem in a convincing manner that groups ranging from Belfast to Dublin, Cork and Limerick, are to set up a forum to share information and co-ordinate activities.

While the Government utters pious platitudes, the reality is that voluntary groups have lost patience with officialdom and are taking decisive action by creating a central contact channel in Dublin called Teen-Line Ireland.