Remarks by President McAleese at Console’s Annual Conference Thursday, 2nd April, 2009
Remarks by President McAleese at Console’s Annual Conference Thursday, 2nd April, 2009
Tá an-áthas orm bheith i bhur láthair ar an ocáid seo. Tá me buíoch dibh as an cuireadh agus an fáilte fíorchaoin a chur sibh romham.
Thank you all for the very warm welcome. As Patron of Console I was very pleased to accept the invitation from Paul Kelly to be with you this morning. I am grateful for this opportunity to honour the essential work that you do in the cause of suicide prevention and in caring for those bereaved by suicide.
The theme chosen for this conference ‘Remembering the past, Living the present, Shaping the future’ neatly encapsulates so much of the work of Console - you know only too well why each one of these facets is so important. In this room are men and women who waken each morning to face the most harrowing of shadows from the past. Somehow they have to find the energy to face this day and somehow they have to find the energy, faith, hope and determination to build a future very different from the one they had once hoped for. The intensity of their grief is known only to themselves. The depth of their loss and loneliness is often beyond words. The length of each day that they are awake can be a grinding realm of agitation and of questions that have no satisfactory answers. The awful thing is that none of us, no matter how deep our compassion, can go life’s journey for the bereaved. The good thing however is that we can go life’s journey with them. That is why Console exists for we each have the capacity to accompany those on this journey through bereavement to a renewed zest for life. It also exists to do whatever it can to reduce the incidence of suicide so that fewer and fewer individuals and families will be beset by this grief that demands so much of the bereaved.
Our understanding of suicide is only beginning to grow. For generations the taboo was so strong that it made even the recording of basic statistics an exercise in distorted truth. Scholarly research was until recent years fairly rudimentary and public programs designed to reduce suicide are also of relatively recent origin. With the lifting of the criminalisation of suicide and the publishing of more credible and also more complex statistics on suicide and attempted suicide we have seen the growth of quite a number of organisations dedicated to the issue of suicide in one way or another. The story as it is evolving and revealing itself is anything but simple. Suicide affects every age group and gender but not to the same extent. There are mysterious peaks and troughs. On the whole our suicide rate is low compared to other countries according to the Health Research Board. The suicide rates among men and women show huge differences. Suicide rates among the elderly are falling, among young males they are rising steeply.
These glaring differences alone make it unlikely that one single answer exists to the question of prevention, though the link between increased suicides among young males and increases in alcohol abuse should be setting off alarm bells in every home, school, street, peer group, community and across our country generally. However there is that other huge cultural taboo around the extensive social role played by alcohol, allied to our level of tolerance of alcohol abuse among friends and workmates and while that remains high, the chances are that so too will the rate of death from suicide especially among young males.
We need champions like Console to bring to public attention the issues that suicide provokes - the importance of investing in our own mental well-being, of developing good robust coping skills as individuals, families and communities, of providing effective bulwarks against the bullying, the homophobia, the racism, the silent mental suffering, the dread of physical suffering for those facing serious or terminal illness, that leads some people to contemplate ending their lives because the moment they are living in has become so unbearable. There are things we can do as individuals, as families, as community, as civic society and as a nation. Each has a role to play in putting together the web of intuition, care, treatment and support for those who feel suicidal as well as the support systems for those whose lives have been traumatised by suicide.
We may not yet have anything like the full story but at least we are today asking the questions and probing the answers in ways that would simply not have happened even a generation ago. That there is now real public momentum on this subject is largely thanks to organisations like Console who have made this work their business their vocation. Without that pressure and that insistence that we understand more in order that we can help more and help in more effective ways, then the mystery that accompanies many though not all suicides will remain just that, a frustratingly perplexing mystery.
Console’s development of a Child Psychotherapy Service for Children and Young People Affected or Bereaved through Suicide is particularly important for so often in the past the full and long-term impact on them was overlooked as if their immaturity ring-fenced them from downstream consequences or their innocence was a hermetic seal against life’s bruising encounters.
In many ways we are still in the opening chapters of shaping a very different future. Armed with what we know of the past, propelled by the information we are sharing in the present and the suffering we want to leave behind, a new culture is forming in which emotional and mental health issues can be dealt with much more openly and healthily than in the past. For those who face with dread devastating illnesses or disabilities the growing national debate fostered by the Irish Hospice Foundation around dying and palliative care will be a very important contributor to a culture change which will hopefully in time allow us all to contemplate careful and good deaths which leave peace of heart to the bereaved even in the midst of loss. There is a connection between that much broader debate and the debate on suicide for suicide leaves no such peace of heart.
It leaves an agony of torment for those left behind. Consolation is not a perfect antidote to that agony or that torment but it is part of the human positivity and generosity, that helps us muddle through the mess of life and death and to begin to live fully, really again. One of the most beautiful poems ever written in Ireland touches indirectly in this subject. It was written by Brendan Kennelly in his collection called Staying Alive; Real poems for Unreal Times.
Though we live in a world that dreams of ending
that always seems about to give in
something that will not acknowledge conclusion
insists that we forever begin.
Suicide places us in an unreal time. It can come suddenly, often violently, amputating a life, a family, a peer group with awesome cruelty. For those affected, beginning again can seem so desperately difficult and yet it is also humanly very necessary.
As our economy and lifestyles adjust to the impact of the global economic crisis, we know individuals and families face considerable new stresses and strains. Debts and unemployment or the fear of it will take their toll on relationships and on mental
well-being. We know that we cannot wish these things away. They will be very real in their consequences for research confirms what common sense tells us, that following job loss people report higher levels of anxiety, stress, depression, anger and loss of personal control and self esteem. The national strategy for action on suicide ‘Reach Out’ clearly identifies the need to support the development of services and programmes for unemployed people to help increase resilience and reduce the risk of suicidal behaviour.
I understand that the National Office for Suicide Prevention will be engaging with partnership agencies to increase awareness of all types of support available to those most affected and provide practical information on how individuals can relieve anxiety and emotional distress as well as implementing training and education to relevant agencies on how individuals can become alert to the warning signs of suicide and mental health difficulties with a view to helping those in distress seek help. The National Office, the Health Service Executive and other stakeholders are seeking the support of statutory and non statutory agencies to work with them to support employers, staff, individuals and their families faced with difficulties during this time. This is where civic society and especially organisations like Console will be invaluable in helping all of us find the strength and imagination we need to get through this tough period to the better days we know we are capable of creating between us.
I thank you all for attending this conference and I would like to take this opportunity to wish all those associated with Console continued success with your future endeavours in responding to the needs of those bereaved through suicide within the community.
Is iontach an obair atá ar siúl agaibh. Go n-éirí go geal libh agus go raibh míle, míle maith agaibh.