Lives are at stake - restore SOSAD message service

The closure of SOSAD’s messaging service is a major blow to families and people who rely on it for accessing counselling and mental health supports.

Let us not forget what SOSAD stands for - Save Our Sons and Daughters - and that is it’s sole raison d’etre. There are six offices based in counties Cavan, Monaghan, Meath, Louth and Laois, with clients across 28 counties.

The SOSAD team have been providing such a wonderful support service in our community for almost 18 years now.

Many babies born when the service first set up - and at a time when Cavan and Monaghan had the sad record of having one of the highest suicide rates in the country - these are now becoming young adults. They are perhaps the cohort who most need these services now.

A look at the statistics for last year shows that one in three who made contact with SOSAD were aged 25 years and younger.

SOSAD has been left with little other choice but to close down the messaging service in order to protect and prolong the availability of the other services it offers.

It’s a crying shame that this has boiled down to money - a meagre €4,000 a month. Not even pocket money considering the amounts spent elsewhere.

We all know teenagers and young adults are far more likely to communicate using messaging services. How many teenagers have you called on the phone only for it to go unanswered, to then almost immediately receive a text ‘were you looking for me?’

The SOSAD message service was therefore the first and perhaps most important point of contact for young people with the organisation. If a young person is in crisis, it takes great courage and bravery to reach out for help and this vital first layer of contact, or support service, has now been taken away. It may be so much harder in those dark, difficult days to now pick up the phone and ring someone, to actually have to speak and open up to someone. Of course, that is eventually what will happen, and indeed perhaps counselling, but how many people will choose to simply not make that call?

There is some confusion locally as to whether interim funding was promised by the previous Minister for Mental Health, Mary Butler, and whether formal ‘Section 39’ funding was applied for in time.

In any event, the money has run out for this important service. Is it right that a voluntary organisation should have to foot the bill to pay for these vital, life-saving services in the first instance?

The government relies heavily on ‘Section 39’ organisations to provide services in the community - organisations like SOSAD and Enable Ireland. It’s no longer good enough and it’s not working.

It’s interesting to see that ‘Section 39’ workers, attached to SIPTU, have voted for strike action. These workers typically provide services for people with disabilities, the elderly and other vulnerable groups.

Organisations who provide these services deserve proper support and, furthermore, ‘Section 39’ workers in professional roles - such as counsellors, OTs etc - deserve to be paid the same as those working directly for the HSE or the public sector.

They have been highlighting this uneven pay playing field for years and issues over parity of esteem and the ability to recruit professionals into these roles have been highlighted more in recent years.

The demand for SOSAD services is evident and growing. In 2024 the service offered more than 23,000 counselling sessions to more than 1,900 individual clients from 28 counties across 150 different nationalities. The people of Cavan have always been good at supporting SOSAD fundraisers but it’s no longer enough to keep things going such is the demand.

Surely, common-sense and decency must prevail. Interim funding must be provided until the formal application can be finalised.

Lives are at stake.