INDEPENDENT CLLR. Padge Reck had five people contacted him last week who were contemplating suicide.

“I am actually frightened at what’s going on,” Cllr. Reck told The Echo.

“Apart from the fact less people believe in God, debt is the greatest cause of suicide in Ireland. People have no religion any more and if you don’t have religion and you don’t believe in the hereafter people get into a frame of mind where they have no hope about the future,” he said.

“I’m dealing with people who are about to lose their house; they have the banks and the Revenue Commissioners after them. I had one woman into me last Monday in a very distressed state, with her children, with not enough money to survive.”

Cllr. Reck said he was able to get help for the woman.

He also had a psychiatrically ill man call him, but had to phone 12 different health professionals before help could be found.

“The minute psychiatric hospitals are finished with them they are released and given a bus ticket. I rang 12 people because I needed a letter from a social worker to state that he was incapable of living in the environment he was in. The chief psychiatrist in Waterford eventually helped him.

“I dealt with five possible suicides last week alone. These cases had to be dealt with as a matter of urgency. I got results because I am persistent.”

Cllr. Reck said he has never seen local people in such distress.

“It’s only beginning to manifest itself and it’s going to get worse. You have teenage girls who are the victims of cyber bullying. In our day it was a case of ‘sticks and stones may break your bones, but names will never hurt you’. But today names are hurting these girls on social media sites.”