This article is from page 50 of the 2012-05-01 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 50 JPG
THERE was an increase on the number of people from Clare seeking help from suicide intervention service Pieta House in 2011. 348 people accessed Pieta House Mid West’s centre in Mungret, Limerick. 54 people came from Clare.
Tom McEvoy of Pieta House in Clare confirmed the increase ahead of the service’s second annual ‘Darkness into Light’ charity walk in Ennis next week. There are currently 20 people on a waiting list for the centre.
Mr McEvoy said, “We have a waiting list unfortunately. That isn’t the way we want Pieta House to run because we were fortunate up to now that we were able to cope with the numbers of people coming in the doors. However, we had 15 and a half per cent of the total number of people availing of Pieta’s services last year from County Clare. That’s a firm statistic.”
Mr McEvoy said the service urgently needs funding to meet its goal of providing a centre within 100km of every person in the country.
“There was a gesture made through the lottery and health board. We got € 100,000 which partly paid off the debt that we have on Pieta Mid West, our facility there. It’s like scraping all the time for funding. Instead of having a figure that we can work with, we’re continually going for bits and pieces. It’s not good enough and I feel strongly that we need to drive harder for funding.”
The Darkness into Light walk starts at 4am on Saturday, May 12 at 4am. Registration takes place at Lees Road on Thursday, May 10 and on the day.