‘Talk’ YFG Anti-Suicide Campaign launched in Cork

The Cork City Branch of Young Fine Gael (YFG) recently launched their ‘Talk’ campaign in Cork City. The ‘Talk’ campaign us a campaign to raise awareness of mental health problems and remove the stigma surrounding them in Ireland. The stigma that surrounds mental health problems makes it difficult for some people to seek help or discuss their problems with friends. This causes further problems for people and can lead to many more problems such as; alcoholism, drug addiction or attempt to commit suicide.

Suicide is a major problem in Ireland. Every 45 minutes, the time it takes to watch half a soccer match, someone in Ireland aged between 16 and 25 attempts suicide. This is a shocking statistic and something must be done.

When the current Government came to power in 1997 they commissioned a report into the problems of youth suicide in Ireland. This report made a number of recommendations to try and solve the problem of youth suicide. The Government has yet to implement any of the recommendations made in this report.

YFG is calling for the problems of mental health and youth suicide in Ireland to be tackled competently by the Government by implementing recommendations in current reports and increasing the mental health budget which has decreased over the past number of years in comparison to the overall health budget.