Professor Kevin Malone:

I will try to answer two questions that emerged. One was a question on legitimising suicidality. The question actually was about legitimising suicide, and I do not think that is fair. However, I think it potentially is legitimising suicidality, and that has the potential of running interference at deeper levels in Irish society than those to which we are giving full thought. That would be my feedback on that question. I heard someone mention Dr. Sheehan's grave concerns, and as a result of this, I would share his concerns in that area.

The other question that came up was about communication of intent, which is a good question because communication of intent does increase the risk. In other words, people who say they are going to do something are more likely to do it. Unfortunately, one still remains in the realms of extremely rare. When one is trying to predict something that is as rare as one in 500,000, even though one can improve the odds, one will not improve them anywhere into the range of having any type of predictive validity. Consequently, the answer to communication of intent is yes, it increases the odds. For example, as I mentioned, we have more than 15,000 presentations to accident and emergency each year, many of which involve people who have made an attempt on their lives. While it may not have been of high lethality, they have made an attempt on their lives. The vast majority of these people will not take their own lives. Again, one is entering into the realms of statistical theory.