{"id":17274,"date":"2016-03-31T15:22:41","date_gmt":"2016-03-31T15:22:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.anfocal.ie\/?p=17274"},"modified":"2016-03-31T15:22:41","modified_gmt":"2016-03-31T15:22:41","slug":"incumbent-ulsu-welfare-officer-tells-rte-a-minister-for-mental-health-is-needed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anfocal.ie\/index.php\/incumbent-ulsu-welfare-officer-tells-rte-a-minister-for-mental-health-is-needed\/","title":{"rendered":"Incumbent ULSU Welfare Officer tells RT\u00c9 a Minister for Mental Health is needed"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Caolan
Caolan O\u2019Donnell with his campaign team and mental health campaigner, Niall Breslin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

By Tom\u00e1s Heneghan<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Following his win in the 2016 Sabbatical elections earlier this month, incumbent University of Limerick Students\u2019 Union (ULSU) Welfare Officer, Caolan O\u2019Donnell recently appeared on RT\u00c9\u2019s Claire Byrne Live to talk about mental health.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

During the segment of the show which aimed to address the current mental health crisis in Ireland, Mr O\u2019Donnell was invited to speak, following his campaign video on the issue going viral prior to his election.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mr O\u2019Donnell told the show: \u201cAs much as [the video] was about being elected, it wasn\u2019t all about that, this was about making a change.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cWe had the pleasure of meeting Niall [Breslin] last week and it didn\u2019t matter who came in as the sabbaticals, all of us – there was five of us who ran for the position – all of us felt the same about mental health: that it\u2019s being ignored in Ireland.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He went on to tell the presenter, Claire Byrne, and her guests, which included Irish celebrity and mental health advocate, Niall Breslin, that the country needed a Minister for Mental Health.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He explained: \u201cThe fact that we don\u2019t have a Minister of Mental Health is an embarrassment, as in, it\u2019s clearly a massive, massive issue.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201c131 students on average a year in Ireland die by suicide – How is that being ignored? As in, it\u2019s only students and organisations that are run by charities, by people themselves that are facing up to this issue.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He concluded: \u201cThere\u2019s nothing being mentioned about it in the Government. It angers me just thinking about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mr O\u2019Donnell, currently a 4th year Business student at UL, will take up his new position as DP Welfare Officer at ULSU during the summer, alongside incoming ULSU President, Sarah Dunphy and VP Academic Officer, Donal Foley. He will replace current Welfare Officer, Ciara Corcoran.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/path><\/svg><\/i> \"Loading\"<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  By Tom\u00e1s Heneghan   Following his win in the 2016 Sabbatical elections earlier this month, incumbent University of Limerick Students\u2019 Union (ULSU) Welfare Officer, Caolan O\u2019Donnell recently appeared on RT\u00c9\u2019s Claire Byrne Live to talk about mental health.   During the segment of the show which aimed to address the current mental health crisis […]<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/path><\/svg><\/i> \"Loading\"<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17275,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"a3_pvc":{"activated":true,"total_views":23,"today_views":0},"views":2174,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.anfocal.ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/28.jpg","wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anfocal.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anfocal.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anfocal.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anfocal.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anfocal.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17274"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.anfocal.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17276,"href":"https:\/\/www.anfocal.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17274\/revisions\/17276"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anfocal.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anfocal.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anfocal.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anfocal.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}