A Sinn Féin TD has spoken about the suicide of his two brothers as the party called for crisis intervention mental health services to be made available 24 hours a day, seven days a week throughout the State.

Cork East TD Pat Buckley, who said he had also seen too many friends die by suicide, told the Dáil that, as the eldest of the family, he had the responsibility of breaking the news to his parents and siblings.

“I did not have the answers at the time to my brothers’ deaths and still do not,” he said. “But surely, with better preventative measures and services like 24/7 crisis intervention, many other families could have been spared the same trauma.”

Mr Buckley said he could not describe “the hurt and sense of loss that is experienced within a family when family members are told that one of their own has died by suicide. Emotions are just sucked from the body and automatically replaced with feelings of hopelessness, sadness, bewilderment and anger.”

He said he was “sure that my story is replicated by many families across the country, and this is still happening today”.

Introducing the motion, the party’s deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald said 24/7 crisis intervention mental health services are the “most immediate concern” of all those working directly in the area of mental health and suicide prevention.

Awareness programmes

The Dublin Central TD said she had met representatives of statutory bodies and nongovernmental agencies as well as families and individuals who had set up awareness programmes, help groups and local community initiatives.

“The absence of 24/7 intervention services is the point where lives are lost,” she said. “Lives have been lost.”

Ms McDonald said “crises do not occur during set hours, and there is no timetable or schedule for a crisis occurring for somebody. By their very nature, crises are unpredictable and unexpected.”

In response, Minister of State for Mental Health Helen McEntee said the 24/7 services were a priority and a goal, but “it is important that we ensure we get the seven-day services working as best we can”.

She said the HSE mental health division was concentrating on the development of a seven-day service focused around day hospital and home supports as a priority.

This approach was in line with the resources currently available.

Increased staffing

Ms McEntee said staffing had increased in community services and a good deal of progress had been made in the implementation of “A Vision for Change”, the 2006 road map for mental health services.

However, Green Party deputy leader Catherine Martin said that “10 years later, the implementation of this excellent document has been appallingly slow”. According to Independent TD Michael Fitzmaurice, people in mental health crisis who go to emergency departments often have to wait for four and five hours and they lose hope.

The Roscommon-Galway TD cited a case where he had asked someone to call to a house to encourage a person to get help, but “unfortunately they are told go to hospital”.

People Before Profit TD Mick Barry said 127,000 people walked and ran in the May “Darkness Into Light” event for suicide charity Pieta House, compared with 300 who attended the event in 2009.

The increase showed a “huge growing awareness of the issue of which the parties of the political establishment completely lag behind in appreciating”, he said.