A Pieta House facility for those at risk of suicide has been proposed for Portlaoise, with the local parish willing to provide a premises for the facility.
A motion before this week’s meeting of Laois County Council from Councillor Noel Touhy called on the council to help provide the facility.
“I am asking the Council and colleagues today to initiate a plan that will bring a Pieta House facility and service to Portlaoise for the benefit of all our community,” Cllr Touhy said.
Cllr Tuohy commended the Council for the ongoing progressive role it is playing in promoting the wellbeing and welfare of the community in county Laois.
“The Council as an agency and an entity has come a long way from fixing potholes and taxing cars, albeit both important services too,” he said.
Stressing the importance of the Pieta House facility, he said: “ It is quite literally a matter of life and death that we do so”.
He said the council has been pro-active and welcomed the role played through the local authority and its agencies and partners in promoting quality of life and good mental health.
“However, there is a glaring gap and a great deficiency in the States provision of mental health supports, counselling, education and outreach and out of hour’s services. I am not saying this is the council’s sole responsibility or primary function but we do have a role to play in terms of acting as a catalyst, a facilitator and to show some leadership and support.
Crucial
“We should do so in tandem and in consultation with other key stakeholders and interested parties and the HSE has a crucial role to play here. But we must as a local authority take the initiative here to invite, engage, welcome and enable a suicide support service such as Pieta House to our county,” he said.
He noted, Pieta House, who have eleven centres operational in the country recently opened their latest facility in Athlone.
“This is good. It didn’t happen by chance and in that instance the role and support of the local Lions Club was a critical factor. Pieta also have a centre in Roscrea,” Cllr Touhy said.
“However, both these centres and those in Dublin are too far for members of our community who are suffering from depression, suicidal tendencies, coping with suicidal ideation or suicide bereavement.
“Portlaoise is the largest urban centre in the Midlands and we have seen more than our fair share of the torment and tragedy of suicide. Unfortunately it has been a bleak and black January for some families. These are personal stories and personal devastations which in time will be added to the suicide and self-harm statistics.
“Suicide is a scourge of our time, a torment in our community and we must try to do something about it other than offer our consolation, prayers and sympathy. While these are important, may help and may bring some comfort to intervene, to prevent one suicide, to save one life is eminently more important,” he said.
There are now three times more people dying from suicide each year in Ireland than in road traffic accidents, he noted.
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