Remarks by President McAleese at the Annual Console Conference Marking World Suicide Prevention Day
Royal Hospital Kilmainham, Dublin, Monday, 9th September, 2013
Dia dhíbh a chairde. Go raibh maith agaibh as an gcuireadh agus as an bhfáilte. I thank Paul Kelly for his kind invitation and thank you for such a warm welcome to this conference which marks 2011 World Suicide Day. Suicide Prevention and Postvention, the theme of this conference are preoccupations in many hearts and homes not just here in Ireland but around the world for death by suicide is a deeply troubling and disturbing global phenomenon.
Console has been an invaluable and accessible friend to those who have been bereaved as a result of suicide as well as an important voice in the growing national discourse on suicide prevention and postvention and on encouraging a positive culture of mental wellbeing. Part of that positive culture involves interrogating the communal, inherited attitudinal sources of stress and dysfunction that contribute to mental ill health, things like for, example, the role of alcohol and drugs or the role of attitudes to homosexuality both of which bear down very heavily on our young population and in particular on young males.
Part of creating a positive mental health culture involves the sphere of personal responsibility and involves actively moving away from the dangerous reluctance to openly acknowledge and seek appropriate help when we experience serious mental distress. The See Change National Stigma Reduction Campaign will, I hope, go a long way to reducing that reluctance and encourage people to seek the help that is there, is designed to help them and that can make all the difference. More than that, I look forward to the growth of a culture capable of recognising and confidently addressing the signs and signals of distress so that problems are tackled and coping strategies put in place before serious damage is done.
Mental ill-health and suicide have been with us in good times and in bad but these difficult economic times undoubtedly increase the strain on individuals and families as unemployment and indebtedness take their toll. They make it all the more imperative that we do all that we can to reduce the suicide rate, reduce the unnecessary waste of human life, reduce the awful legacy of grief for the bereaved and reduce the awful, overwhelming misery of a life that feels compelled to contemplate suicide.
Recent years have seen a considerable growth in the number of professionals working in this field, as well as in the number of voluntary organisations, both national and local, which are addressing suicide or mental health related issues. We have more initiatives and supports than at any time in the past. We have a growing public awareness that suicide prevention and reduction requires a concerted and integrated effort from all groups in society - from service providers, service users, communities, schools, colleges, clubs, workplaces, families and friends.
Where embedded attitudes or behaviours conduce to the kinds of anxieties or stresses that can lead to suicidal thoughts or behaviour then we need to be proactive and get on with ridding ourselves and our communities of them; whether it is homophobia, racism, cyber bullying, school bullying, alcohol or drug abuse, these things expressed in words or deeds have the capacity to isolate individuals and infect them with intolerable levels of despair and self-doubt.
There is much more to suicide than even these corrosive attitudes and behaviours and it is to probe the awful “why” of suicide and the “how” of its prevention that you have gathered here for a packed programme with expert speakers drawn from the worlds of medicine, politics, science and academia as well as those who share their personal stories. This room holds quite an array of expertise, wisdom and insight into one harrowing aspect of human phenomena. It is a resource base we need to interrogate, probe, analyse and distil if we are to continue to make inroads into the incidence of death by suicide.
We are grateful to each one of you for making this subject your business and we are grateful to Console for the compassion, practical help and hope it offers even in the most awful of situations and suicide is surely the most awful of situations. To be able to insert a determined and hard-headed hope into our national narrative on suicide is essential if we are to change that narrative from choosing death to choosing life.
Tomorrow is World Suicide Prevention Day when we highlight this scourge not in a superficial way but in a solemn way so that when we return to it a year from now there may be a better story to tell. I thank Console and the many other organisations around the country that have organised events to mark the day and to keep the public engaged in the search for the means to overcome this dreaded, awesome thing we call suicide, the tragic ending of a life by one’s own hand.
What does not end though is the love for that life, for that man or woman, boy or girl, husband or wife, son or daughter, friend or colleague. The love that endures, the loss that endures is the very energy that generates the momentum behind Console, behind this conference, behind our collective determination to get to grips with suicide prevention and postvention, comprehensively and effectively or to keep searching until we do.
Is iontach an obair ata ar siúl anseo. Go n-éirí go geal libh. Go raibh maith agaibh.