Society must face up to the issue of increasing male suicide, a Garda sergeant and lecturer told a rural communities conference in Portumna, Co Galway, yesterday. Sgt Mike Egan, who is attached to the research division in the Garda College in Templemore, Co Tipperary, said the alarming increase in the suicide rate among young males was a symptom of the increasing isolation and disintegration of society.
These trends were being fuelled by changing work and travel patterns, he said. With new technology, people often spent much more time in the workplace alone, and under greater pressure; and with improved economic conditions, increased car ownership meant that people were more likely to travel on their own.
Therefore, when difficulties arose, there was often less opportunity to seek help among friends or colleagues.
Men must be educated to deal with their emotions in such situations, and to communicate with each other - as women were much better able to do.
Sgt Egan was addressing a conference on the impact of change on rural communities, particularly the impact of post office closure. The conference was organised and facilitated by Canon Trevor Sullivan of the Christian Training Institute.
Bullying in schools and in the workplace, and over-reliance on alcohol, were contributory factors to depression among younger males, Sgt Egan said. In 1980, the number of suicides reported nationally broke down as 143 males and 73 females - a ratio of two to one in terms of sex. In 1998, there were 421 male and 83 female suicide cases reported - a ratio of five to one. The group most at risk was young males in the 15 to 24-year-old category.
Sgt Egan trains gardai on how to deal with families who have been bereaved by suicide, and he has also worked with the National Suicide Bereavement Support network. "Families affected by such a death need an awful lot of support, and they need to be visited, rather than isolated. We tend to encourage visitors to speak about the person who died, rather than the cause of death, and to listen if the bereaved relatives want to talk," he told The Irish Times.
The plight in which many managers of rural post offices currently found themselves represented a "new brand of poverty", Mr J.J. Bunyan told the conference. Some 50 per cent of managers of rural post offices earned less than £8,000 a year, he said.
"The reality is that they cannot survive on a weekly income of £150, but many are still too proud to admit that they are in fact members of the new poor," Mr Bunyan said. Mr Bunyan, a joint organiser of the conference, was speaking in place of Mr Peter Kitt, postmaster in Mountbellew, who had originally been listed to talk on the subject.
IN the early years after the Civil War of 1921-'22, people had been appointed to run post offices in recognition of their part in the struggle for Irish freedom, and in compensation for not qualifying for a Civil War pension, he said. "Enormous prestige" was attached to the job, even though the salary was a token one in comparison to the responsibilities involved.
It must be accepted that a network of 1,900 rural post offices was no longer viable when 900 offices generated five per cent of An Post sales, he said. He forecast a surviving network of 1,200 offices, with long-term solutions implemented in stages if they were to be effective. Information technology could offer a way forward, if managers were given appropriate training to offer a wider range of franchised services.
Mr Bunyan expressed serious concern for the future of rural Ireland, given the current trauma experienced by the agricultural sector. Third-level education was the "main reason" for the depopulation of rural Ireland, he added. "Third-level graduates are not returning to areas where there are no appropriate jobs," he said.