Use of prescription pain medication rises by 25%
Research from the Royal College of Surgeons has found a sharp increase in the use of prescription pain medication between 2014 and 2022.
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Prescriptions for paracetamol rose by 50 per cent, while codeine and stronger opioids increased by even higher percentages.
The prescribing of pain medications by doctors has risen "significantly" in recent years, and is now outpacing England, according to the research.
The study looked at figures from 2014 to 2022 for those with a medical card, and compared it with data from GP practices in England.
The use of opioids rose 25 per cent in Ireland in that time, while specific medicines like codeine and oxycodone increased by even higher amounts.
Frank Moriarty, Associate Professor at the RCSI, said this comes with risks.
Prof Moriarty said: "These medications can when used long-term lead to the development of dependence and other side effects that can have an impact on patients' lives.
"It's really important that in treating pain there are a variety of options available to patients to avail of and potentially reduce use of these dependence-forming medications."
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Yet her final months became engulfed in acrimony, bitterness and claims of bullying in the sleepy North Yorkshire village of Bentham, where she had opened a crafting enterprise earlier this year. Within weeks, Amanda Bloom Craft Room had closed down. Beneath a sign announcing the 'temporary closure', someone plastered a sticker that simply read: 'Good!' In a final Facebook post, Amanda accused a 'little group of crafters in Bentham' of making her life 'miserable for months with your bitchy comments, cruel Facebook memes and untrue gossip.' She wrote: 'Please don't think it's ok to pass me in the street with a cheery smile and hello…as if nothing has happened. 'It's not ok. You've cost me my new business, my financial security and my home. 'Please don't kid yourself that what you've done is a bit of harmless fun. It isn't. There are consequences.' In a suicide note, later posted online, she said: 'I just long for Jenny with all my heart….the laughter, the feeling of loving her unconditionally and being so wholeheartedly loved in return. She was the one wonderful thing in my life and without her it's just too hard. 'When I originally applied to Pegasos, I had hoped to go in November…to have one last summer and autumn, and to carry on running my lovely shop for a bit longer, but after the bullying escalated and made my shop feel unsafe to me, I decided to go as soon as possible. 'So I'm done. I give up. I just want to be with my darling girl who was always kind, always compassionate. I don't know what lies ahead. Maybe we'll be together, maybe there's only oblivion.' Amanda continued: 'I've sent letters to my nearest and dearest which hopefully you'll have received before seeing this. Nobody needs to do anything. All the official stuff has been taken care of. 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I just want to be with my darling girl who was always kind, always compassionate.' Even in death, Amanda's story has bitterly divided her former community in the picturesque Yorkshire Dales. Supporters accused a small group of women of carrying out a 'hate campaign' against the grieving mother, who lived in a £400-a-month charity-run almshouse. One friend told Mail Online that Amanda had been the victim of 'nasty and unceasing bullying from a community of crafters', describing it 'like something from the film 'Wicked Little Letters', only in this story it has ended with somebody's death'. But women accused online as supposedly bullying Amanda insisted the claims could not have been further from the truth. Andrea Taylor, 61, told MailOnline: 'Don't portray Amanda as being this nice, lovely woman who's been upset by the public. 'Bentham has got really good people here. People did try to help her when she first came back and she turned nasty. 'She could be very plausible online - if you only saw the last posts before she died, you'd think 'poor woman.' But believe me, she had a very nasty side. Ms Taylor, a former police employee, added: 'She has followers who are making out me and others are bullies, when we're not. 'We're standing up for good people. And Amanda wasn't. She really wasn't. 'She's taken her own life and I don't wish to sound insensitive, but I'm not having friends that are genuine and caring being upset.' Amanda's supporters, many of whom purchased her popular DIY crafting kit subscriptions, claim she was hounded out of Bentham by a clique of 'pathetic harridans'. One wrote online: 'Your puerile and vile behaviour cost a lovely lady her business, her home and her peace of mind to such an extent that she felt she had no reason to stay alive any longer.' 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Amanda wrote on Instagram in May: 'I was hoping that the bullies would have moved on by now but they haven't, so I'm just keeping to myself for these last few days until I can leave Bentham. 'I'm so sorry to let you down but it's just not worth the aggro.' Retired textiles crafter Lynne Massey, 69, claimed Amanda turned against her after the pair both moved to Bentham in 2020. She said: 'I did my best but she disliked me from the beginning. I didn't do anything against her. 'She told me never to speak to her, so I didn't, and then she told everybody I was ignoring her and not speaking. 'It was like this for four years. 'She upset me, but I put that out of the way. But there were people in my community that she was having shouts and screams at. Once she came out of the shops and called me a tatty-headed, scruffy old bitch. 'She's upset so many people. I stopped going out for quite a while, just kept to myself. 'I thought 'I don't need this hassle'. I'm too old for it.' Amanda's mental health struggles were not new, according to those that knew her. In 2010, she hit headlines when she accused an Anglican vicar of fleecing her out of £160,000 during a time of severe depression after her marriage broke down and her sister died. She claimed he told her to stop taking antidepressants and instead offered 'deliverance ministry' to expel demons, telling her to make a list of everyone she had ever had sex with, and burn it. 'I was so low and believed he was the only one who could cure me, so I did whatever he said,' she alleged at the time. 'He has fleeced me out of thousands and robbed my daughter and I of our financial security.' Amanda's social media profiles are awash with claim and counterclaim, with those accused of bullying being blamed for her decision to end her life. One former neighbour suggested that some residents were angry that she had opened a crafting business, when one was already operational in the town. They said: 'There was already a craft shop and some people thought she was taking business away. But she wasn't selling things. She was running classes, trying to find happiness after her daughter died. 'It sounds pathetic but there are some horrible old bitches in the village.' Another suggested there was consternation that Amanda had been housed in accommodation designated for the destitute, despite appearing to be able to pay rent and rates for her business premises. NHS worker Rachel Martin, from Bentham, spoke in defence of both Amanda and those accused of bullying. In a lengthy Facebook post, she said: 'Amanda was often distressed and hysterical, accusing people of bullying her, stalking her and harassing her. These things never actually happened. 'This whole situation centres around a lovely lady who suffered the tragedy of losing her daughter and struggled with her mental health. 'Her actions were driven by that, but caused a lot of stress and upset to the people who had bent them over a period of many months. 'Those people who did their very best to support a troubled friend are now being vilified online and accused of driving her to suicide.' In Switzerland, where Pegasos operates, there is no requirement for terminal illness to be a factor in approving an assisted dying application - unlike proposed legislation in the UK. Amanda informed friends of her decision via letters sent from the airport. The clinic later confirmed her death to an unknown 'designated contact'. This week, Amanda's one bed cottage had been emptied and a new arrival was due to move in. Neighbour Fred Carter, 88, said he was stunned to learn of her assisted suicide. He said: 'To me, she seemed fine. I used to take in her parcels - loads of them, sewing machines and things like that. I never saw anything wrong with her 'She never said a word to anyone about going or what her plans were. I just can't work it out. But you never know what's going on in someone's mind. 'She was a good neighbour, always spoke nicely. I didn't have a bad word to say about her.' Amanda's best friend, crafter Julie Park, posted online how the pair said a final goodbye before she left North Yorkshire in her campervan for the last time. She said: 'We Facetimed every couple of hours right up until the last time when she was in the clinic. 'And even then, I told her it wasn't too late. I could get a flight and go and get her. 'She could come back here, we could make a she was happy and content and utterly unwavering in her decision. 'The longing for Jenny was overpowering and even if she was heading for oblivion, she said she was walking through a door that Jenny had gone through and that nothing else mattered.' Eight weeks on from Amanda's death, her ashes are still to be returned from Switzerland - a wait that has done little to quell whispers in Bentham that she may actually still be alive. In one of the village's three pubs, one local said: 'It's sad and people want to draw a line under it. 'But there are so many people who don't even believe that she's done it, and that she might just turn back up. 'Nobody knows for sure, do they, that she's gone?' Friends from the crafting community have since raised over £7,000 for a bursary for budding artists. The fund will enable an artist to stand at Yarndale, one of the biggest crafting shows in the UK, held annually at nearby Skipton.
