I have been writing now since 2002.  Last year what you see below is the list of people who received emails.  If you consider this and then review the shocking details of the investigative Prime Time programme last week, our head in the sand attitudes need to be challenged.

Just one year later.  Prime Time last night 23rd June 2016.

Console – Suicide – complicity HSE with the pathetic reasoning of fear they would have no helplines for people in need.  Nobody mentioned whether the counsellors were qualified, paid, or even if they were the three people who if what is alleged is true will find themselves before the courts.

We have had Rehab.  We know the land in Sandymount is to be sold.  We know the case is in the court presently because Ms Kerins formerly Chief Executive of Rehab considers the PAC committee to have exceeded their remit relating to questions asked.  We know the salary, the benefits, the defined benefit pension.  Recently I heard of a man who lost his job there; he worked thirty years for Rehab, he is entitled to no pension, no money left in the kitty.  Nobody considers it strange regarding the Irish Medical Council and Mr McNeice and his pension.  The amount was reduced from a mere £24 million to £9.5.  Nobody asks why this trade union signed off on it and why members of the medical profession were so compliant!

We never hear about the Hade Family and Victory Church.  They provided Church, housing, drug rehabilitation.  This was due to go to court also, maybe it has.

Can we please have some commitment to Governance in the charity sector?  8,600+ charities with over 100,000 people employed is commendable but not where fraud becomes embedded or worse greed and entitlement for the elites.

We have industries being created relating to homelessness, illness, mental health, suicide, cancer etc.  Charity should be only as a bridge to achieving a proper public health system and there must be good governance, accountability and transparency backed up by properly audited accounts.

One year on.  The scandal now being unfurled by RTE programme concerning Console, the family, the multiple sets of accounts, the basic fraud only fractures further the confidence of people who feel vulnerable.  It is saying to the person with mental health history or who is suicidal, we don’t care, we need you as fodder.  Is it any wonder our health service provision for psychiatric is in such chaos because people end up on the revolving door.

Alcohol fuels the industries referred to above.  It needs to be acknowledged especially relating to mental health, alcoholism, suicide, car accidents, health, obesity etc etc.  Proper public health is needed in Ireland linked to the Universities involved in research.

Michelle

Pandora's box all the bad but there is Hope!  Migrants who are fleeing 
North Africa to Italy to Greece to Calais - what they have is hope.

Suicide is preventable.  If you want to see hope.  Look out for High 
Hopes choir.  Talent is everywhere, it needs someone to go looking 
sometimes.

Article in Irish Independent today concerning new Alcohol Act and the 
comments by Professor Frank Murray is worth reading.


http://www.ted.com/talks/kevin_briggs_the_bridge_between_suicide_and_life