Dr. Justin Brophy:

It is still difficult to get help because the point of call is often an out-of-hours service in a general practice that would not necessarily know the person and may involve a lot of waiting or an emergency department that is often a fraught and difficult environment in which to conduct such assessments. There is a better way of doing it.

We also recommend greater investment in a comprehensive range of drug and alcohol services. We do not have services commensurate with the extent of the problem in this country. We recommend greater drug controls around benzodiazepines. There have been notable examples this week, including reports in today's newspapers, of banks taking measures to protect people who are about to lose their family home. They are taking commendable and honourable debt correction measures and if people lose their home, pathways are being provided to ensure they do not become homeless as a result of debt repayment measures.

We would like to recommend further investment in the NOSP. We believe it does great work and we believe, contrary to some of the evidence the committee has heard, that it is the best placed agency to commission and co-ordinate suicide prevention efforts. Stigma campaigns need to be balanced with campaigns that show the impact of suicide on communities and individuals. The normalisation of self-harm needs to be challenged. The more training, the better and suicide resource officers should be trained and given standard operational procedures in order that they can operate in a co-ordinated and targeted way. We also suggest that any relief measures in respect of assisted suicide that this or a subsequent Government may need to be assessed not only in terms of a civil rights, human rights and legal perspective but also in term of the impact on the population. If assisted suicide is to be supported by the Government, it needs to be done in a way that does not defeat the other purpose of the Government to prevent suicide.

We ask the Government to recognise the achievability and political value of suicide prevention because there is still a lot of defeatism and complacency in public and even in political circles that suicide can be prevented. We strongly commend to the Government the importance and achievability of suicide prevention and ask it to be unstinting in its efforts in that regard.