Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Eventually we got the five mobile telephone providers together. Up to now the Samaritans had a lo-call number with Eircom, but the organisation was carrying the cost and clearly could not continue to do so. The other thing we discovered was that very few people are now using landlines. Anybody in distress, young people in particular, were using mobile telephones so that number was of little benefit to them. We got the five mobile telephone providers together and they have agreed to fund the single number, 123116, the Samaritans' new number, which will roll out on a pilot basis for a few weeks in a particular area. The service will then be stopped and evaluated. That is the internationally recognised number and will be a signpost for other services. Sometimes we do not see what is going on behind the scenes but the five mobile providers have been very helpful in this regard. They see it as something that is good for them too.

We have doubled the budget for the national office. A figure of €8.1 million had been available and now €5 million has been provided by the HSE to fund resource officers for suicide prevention, a self-harm liaison nurse in hospital emergency departments and local suicide prevention initiatives. Public and political concern has increased around suicide and there is a perception we are not being sufficiently active in suicide prevention. In this regard the HSE and the national office have been reviewing the activities of the office to ensure we make the most of available resources, including looking at best practice internationally to inform evidence-based decisions. Recently, as a result of enormous public interest, I contacted the national office for suicide research for discussion. I never take that public interest as a criticism. I believe it is a good thing. It encourages all of us to do better. I wanted to talk to the office representatives. We had heard Germany and Scotland were doing much better than us.

I asked the office what we were doing wrong. Its answer was clear - we were doing the same as the countries I have cited. For example, our Reach Out strategy is identical to the German and Scottish strategies. We need to give it time to bed in. We need to be more open about this issue and co-ordinate. Dr. Ella Arensman asked me not to interfere with the strategy and to give it time to work. We may need to do something different in terms of promoting the message and the contact number, that point of clean access. If one is in distress, there are so many doors now that one could become confused. Mr. Raleigh will discuss the clean access and I will happily take questions. I may have left some matters out. I always view these occasions as an opportunity to interact with the committee.