Greenspan's Body Count goes to Ireland

The Independent (Ireland):

A support group has staged a demonstration at a suicide blackspot to highlight its claims that three people a day are taking their own lives due to "unforgivable" pressures over debt.

Support group Let's Get Together (LGT) staged a controversial city centre protest where life-size mannequins were hung from a busy bridge to highlight the suicide crisis now gripping Ireland.

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But suicide support groups say that they must raise awareness and that official CSO figures indicating up to 700 people take their own lives each year are an underestimate.

"The true figure, from what we have been able to garner from suicide support groups around the country, is somewhere between 900 and 1,100. And the problem is that it is rising all the time," said Pat Buckley of LGT.

But Mr Buckley, who lost two of his brothers to suicide, said that there has been a clear shift from younger to older males opting to take their own lives.

"Young men aged from 18 to 30 were always the greatest risk group. But we are seeing a significant increase in the number of men and women aged from 30 to 55 now taking their own lives.

"All the indications are that they cannot take the pressure of debt repayments and having their incomes wiped out by the Celtic Tiger collapse."

Paul Krugman, Ben Bernanke, and Barack Obama, whose solution to the debt crisis is more debt, could not be reached for comment.