A Government minister has opened up about his own struggles with depression and suicidal thoughts, saying he first told his children about it on the way to an RT\u00c9 interview.<\/p>\n
Office of Public Works (OPW) minister Kevin \u2018Boxer\u2019 Moran has urged people to seek help for depression, as the Government launched its new strategy for preventing suicide and self-harm.<\/p>\n
Mr Moran said he had lived through issues that are represented in the strategy \u201cfor a great number of years\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI went through an awful lot of difficulty in life when a number of things caught up with me. I had those suicidal thoughts,” he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI bottled within myself for years and years, and the only people who knew about it were my wife, my parents, my mother-in-law, father-in-law, and best friend.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ahead of him coming into ministerial office during the Fine Gael-Independent coalition, Mr Moran appeared on the Late Late Show\u00a0in 2017 to speak about his struggles with depression and his difficulty with reading.<\/p>\n
Mr Moran said the most \u201cdaunting\u201d thing he needed to do that evening was speak about his suicide attempt to his two teenage children ahead of the interview.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat evening, coming up the motorway with my two teenage sons, I had to tell them that their father nearly (died by) suicide, and explain to them on the way to Dublin what had happened,\u201d Mr Moran said.<\/p>\n
The OPW minister said he travelled the \u201clength and breadth\u201d of the country to meet with people who have dealt with depression.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we talk about suicide, what we talk about mental health, it brings on anxiety, it brings on panic attacks, it brings on depression.”<\/p>\n
Mr Moran said many people are afraid to talk about their depression, citing his own difficulties to build up the \u201ccourage to speak out\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always say there\u2019s always help and there\u2019s always a solution,\u201d Mr Moran said.<\/p>\n
He said the term mental health has a \u201cstigma\u201d attached to it.<\/p>\n
\n It affects people like me; it affects hundreds of people up around the country. They feel like it prevents them from going forward.\n <\/p>\n
The OPW Minister was speaking as the Government launched its plan, Connecting for Life, on Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n
The strategy includes a target to reduce the rate of suicide to seven per 100,000 or fewer by 2035.<\/p>\n
Recommendations of the report include a call for Coimisi\u00fan na Me\u00e1n to protect the public from harm via online and AI content which promotes self-harm and suicide.<\/p>\n
It also recommends that the Department of Justice should consider changing the burden of proof for determining a suicide to a \u201cbalance of probabilities\u201d.<\/p>\n
At present, a coroner can only return a verdict of suicide in cases where it is found \u201cbeyond a reasonable doubt\u201d.<\/p>\n
Asked about this and whether it is leading to an underrepresentation of suicides, mental health minister Mary Butler said it was \u201cvery difficult\u201d to determine if there was a deficiency.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do think we need to get to a situation where we get more data and more information from what the CSO report, so we can target specific areas,\u201d Ms Butler said, referring to the LGBT+, Traveller, and minority communities.<\/p>\n