An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business
Seanad Éireann — 2026-06-23
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Aubrey McCarthy (IND), University of Dublin

I congratulate the Leader. Since I came into this House, he has certainly been a friendly face and shown the rest of us how it is done. Judging by the remarks of our colleagues today, he deserves canonisation rather than election to leadership.
I want to mention a good friend of mine, Ann Lane, who was on the hantavirus ship. She got out of quarantine yesterday. We are all delighted with that. She is coming into the House today with Senator Michael McDowell and me. It shows how public events thousands of miles away can impact us here at home. It showed the very best of our public services working together, with her being brought home by our health professionals and Defence Forces. It really showed that when we work well, we work very well.
I also raise an important issue regarding the impact that alcohol can have on mental health and suicide in Ireland. We know that most people in this country can enjoy alcohol socially and responsibly, but there is also a significant number of people for whom alcohol becomes devastating, and we need to speak honestly about that reality. I recently read a heartbreaking article in The Times about a man called Dan, whose family spoke openly about how alcohol contributed to his death by suicide. On the night he died, his alcohol levels were described as staggering. Many families across Ireland can identify with that. Alcohol can intensify depression, increase impulsivity, and deepen feelings of helplessness. I see at first hand, in my work with Tiglin, how alcohol can slowly dismantle a person's mental health, damage relationships and damage families. We need a more joined-up approach that includes early intervention, counselling, addiction treatment, family support, and better dual-diagnosis services. More importantly, we need to get rid of the stigma so that people know, when they want to ask for help, that there is no stigma surrounding it.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-06-23/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:05+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-23