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Irish Mirror
Irish Mirror
National
David Kent

RTE Prime Time viewers emotional as father of Eden Heaslip reveals disgusting abuse he gets months after son's suicide

The father of Eden Heaslip has revealed to Prime Time that his son still gets abuse from strangers - months after his tragic suicide.

Ray Heaslip and his wife Maggie told the RTE show that Eden's social media accounts still receive abusive messages.

The Cavan native took his own life just two weeks after turning 18 back in September.

It followed months of bullying in school, including an incident where his head was put in a 'shi**y toilet'.

But Eden still gets nasty messages, as Ray explained: "It wasn't nice stuff. I'll give you one of the mild things. 'How does it feel that Eden now is six-foot under?’ ‘The best thing that ever happened Eden this year’ and ‘All he was good for was wasting oxygen’.

"They are mild stuff that they put on the accounts. This is after he was dead. Now if this was after he was dead, what did they do to him when he was alive?"

Ray's comments come as the Government are bringing in the mechanisms to appoint an Online Safety Commissioner.

Officials recently published the Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill and the hope is the Commissioner will be appointed by the end of the year.

But Prime Time viewers were left sickened by the abuse.

One person tweeted: "Bullying is not okay. It should be criminalized."

A second added: "Online abuse needs to be tackled. Think before you post because it’s simply not good enough and abuse should not be acceptable in any shape or form anymore"

While a third said: "Devastating story about Eden Heaslip. Death from bullying is outrageous. Removing wicked & harmful online content quickly has to happen! Hope the new online safely bill turns a corner on this."

If you or someone you know has been affected by the issues raised in this article please contact:
Samaritans helpline 116 123
Aware helpline 1800 80 48 48
Pieta House on 1800 247 247

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