It is not easy to write about a phenomenon as dark, as sensitive and as troubling as suicide. There is always the fear of adding to the hurt of the bereaved, who are already dealing with unbearable grief, often including profound feelings of rejection, writes Breda O'Brien.
Some weeks ago, Peter McCloskey died in tragic circumstances, leaving behind a devastated young family. Peter was in negotiations with the diocese of Limerick concerning an allegation of child abuse by a priest who had moved from the archdiocese of Sydney.
His death occurred two days after talks broke down.
Since then, his story has been increasingly framed as someone driven to take his own life because of the callousness of the church. His mother, Mary McCloskey, said publicly, "I believe the actions of the Limerick diocese are directly responsible for Peter's death."
She also called for the immediate resignation of the Bishop of Limerick, Dr Donal Murray.
When people are fuelled by grief, it is completely understandable that they project their feelings of anger. My difficulty is with the fact that her press conference was hosted by the support group One in Four.
The position taken by One in Four is that it stands over facilitating an opportunity for Ms McCloskey to tell her story, without necessarily endorsing everything she says.
It says that the key issue that should be discussed is the damage caused by the adversarial, confrontational attitude of the diocese's legal team.
However, as a charity in receipt of substantial amounts of public funding, One in Four has a responsibility to be extremely sensitive about how it is perceived to handle the issue of death by suicide.
The World Health Organisation guidelines on coverage of suicide say: "Suicide should not be reported as unexplainable or in a simplistic way. Suicide is never the result of a single factor or event. It is usually caused by a complex interaction of many factors such as mental and physical illness, substance abuse, family disturbances, interpersonal conflicts and life stresses.
"Acknowledging that a variety of factors lead to suicide would be helpful."
One in Four is not a media organisation, but it is a very powerful player in the media. It does no justice to the complexity of factors that lead to people taking their own lives to portray Peter McCloskey only as a heroic victim, battling for truth against an intransigent and secretive church.
In 1999, using a pen name, Peter produced a self-published memoir called The Irish Virus. It paints his relationship with his mother in an appalling light.
Ms McCloskey acknowledges the difficulties in her relationship with Peter. She says she encountered "serious behavioural and discipline difficulties with him" and that despite her best efforts, "my response to Peter was wholly inadequate".
She says her relationship with Peter was healed in 2002 when she realised what he had suffered because of alleged clerical abuse at the age of 10.
Peter dates his difficulties with her to when he was three. He never mentions clerical abuse, which of course proves nothing either way.
While reading, I felt a deep sense of unease. Slowly, I realised what was bothering me. It is a story of his struggle with alcohol addiction, but he tends to blame all his problems on other people.
There is a strong sense of just hearing one side of the story. Yet thereby, am I not committing the cardinal sin against victims of abuse, that is, doubting their account?
In believing, say, that the crude, disparaging and sexist comments he makes about his now separated wife are profoundly unfair, am I denying him the right to be believed? Yet other people featured have the right to have their side of the story heard.
If that applies to this memoir, to what else does it apply? When RTÉ's Prime Time covered the story, it chose not to report Peter's claims of familial emotional and physical abuse from early childhood, although aware of them.
It also downplayed that the diocese had accepted the credibility of Peter's allegations, indicated by the fact of paying for counselling, including a residential course that would have cost some €20,000.
When I contacted the programme makers, they said they were not investigating Peter's death by suicide, but his claim that he had been denied vital information by the church.
They also stated that the proximity of his death to a meeting with the diocese raised legitimate questions as to whether it was a contributory factor. Miriam O'Callaghan went further, asking Bishop Murray: "Do you believe the church, your diocese, yourself, bear any responsibility for his death?"
This is an incendiary question, reinforcing the overly simplistic idea that a person or organisation can be "responsible" for another person's decision to take his or her life.
All we currently know is that there are pre-disposing factors, such as mental illness, addiction, childhood trauma and abuse. By his own account, Peter suffered them all. But suicide prediction is still a blunt science.
People who are identified as highly suicidal may not in fact take their own lives.
Others not identified as suicidal may actually do so, to the complete shock of loved ones. It is dangerous to imply that an individual or organisation is to blame, because it suggests, however unwittingly, that suicide is a legitimate response to particular life crises.
Are we incubating suicide as a society? We thought raising awareness would work, but instead we have an epidemic of young males dying by suicide.
All we seem to have succeeded in doing is imprinting suicide as a legitimate choice in the problem-solving pathways of young people's minds.
However, we cannot hide behind a nihilistic attitude that nothing works. Finland has managed to reduce its youth suicide rates by 23 per cent, through investment in research and tailored interventions at periods of high risk. In Ireland, we have no tailored intervention service for young people.
As a beginning, we need much more knowledge, gleaned from research such as the groundbreaking study championed by Prof Kevin Malone, which involves some 1,000 bereaved families being interviewed.
We also need to scrupulously avoid anything that even hints to other vulnerable people that the choice of suicide will lead to investigative programmes, press conferences and calls for the heads of people in authority. People bereaved by suicide deserve our sympathy and support.
A grief-fuelled response, however unfair, is understandable. It does nothing to advance the cause of suicide prevention when such responses are reinforced by publicly-funded bodies.