THE IRELAND FUND OF MONACO
ANNOUNCES NEW INITIATIVES

The Event M/IFA: Monaco/Ireland Fund Alliance | At the 2006 Gala Weekend, Michael Fitzgerald, President of The Ireland Fund of Monaco (IFM), announced the creation of a new, two-pronged strategic initiative for the Fund: the Monaco/Ireland Fund Alliance (M/IFA).

The new initiative has two strategic objectives:

1. Provide funding for medical research in Ireland that targets chronic diseases which have significant impact in Ireland but which are suffered by communities around the world

2. Provide funding to impoverished communities that suffer a catastrophic natural disaster to supply them with the basic emergency services that will enable them to survive until the arrival of established relief agencies, such as the International Red Cross and similar organizations

The first chronic disease to be targeted is chronic depression that leads to suicidal behavior. Although the World Health Organization has reported an overall decrease in the annual number of suicides in recent years, there has been a dramatic and unexplained increase in suicides and suicide attempts among adolescents and young adults. In that demographic group, males suffer from depression and attempt suicide at a rate that is approximately three times that of females.

The M/IFA initiative officially commenced with the arrival of a newly-appointed Executive Director, MaryCarroll Sullivan in January 2007. Bringing an extensive background in policy work, with an emphasis on strategic advising and organizational development, MC hit the ground running. She spent the first three quarters of 2007 creating strategic, business and communications plans, assembling an Advisory Board and executing aggressive outreach and media strategies in and around Monaco as well as throughout The Ireland Funds’ network.

The Ireland Fund of Monaco made its first medical research grant in the summer of 2007 when it presented Professor Kevin Malone, a neurobiologist at University College Dublin and St. Vincent’s Hospital with a three-year award that will fund an Ad Astra Scholarship which will bring a new researcher to his team. Prof. Malone’s research comprises four areas: he studies functional brain scans to see if there is a physiological foundation to the disease; he works with the Conway Institute for Genomics at UCD to investigate any possible genetic causes of depression; he is conducting interviews with up to a thousand families who have lost members to suicide to look for behavioral and psychosocial clues; and he works with artists as well as the performing arts to educate the public and de-stigmatize the disease.

“The problem of depression leading to suicide has been labeled a global pandemic, and the statistics certainly bear that label out,” says MC Sullivan. “The complexity of possible causative factors requires aggressive and urgent study. The multi-faceted approach adopted by Prof. Malone, and his passion and commitment to a subject that could overwhelm many people to the point of immobility, struck us forcibly. It also motivates us to do much more to help him and others working on this tragic problem to find solutions for it as quickly as possible.”

For further information, please contact:
M.C. Sullivan
Ireland Fund of Monaco
(+377) 93-25-17-32