Stormont is spending £1.8 million raising parapets on the Westlink as part of a suicide prevention pilot first recommended years ago.
“People do not end up on bridges as a first resort,” says Lasair Dhearg spokesperson Pádraic MacCoitir, “They end up there after years of waiting lists, inaccessible mental health support, poverty, addiction, housing stress, trauma, and a political system that only reacts once someone is already at breaking point.”
Pádraic said, “This was recommended in Stormont’s own suicide prevention strategy back in 2019. Announced in 2022. Now back again in 2026 as a ‘pilot’.”
“This alone tells you how much of a priority life is to them.”
“The response remains focused on the visible endpoint of crisis rather than what creates it in the first place.”
“A functioning society would be investing in properly funded, accessible mental health support long before someone reaches desperation.”
“A Socialist Republic will build a free public health service centred on prevention, dignity and care; not quietly adapting infrastructure around the expectation that this will keep happening.”
