34-year old Michael was severely depressed and a recovering alcoholic who was beginning to turn his life around. He resorted to suicide after being called in for Employment and Support Allowance assessments just three months apart. His mother says, “I feel that played a very big part in Michael’s suicide. He took his life the next morning. He wasn’t well enough to be back in work. He had asked the job centre if he could do a course in plastering, but they said no, as it would mean he wouldn’t be available to take work. But he would have been able to manage a course, and it would have given him some focus and helped him recover. Then he would have been happy to go back to work. He wanted a job. He wanted to change his life.”